K01   1 <#FROWN:K01\><p_>Geno called B&B taxi, which took him to the 
K01   2 Barrington campus along Route 9 in a rusty blue '84 Chevy. This 
K01   3 road had been nothing but a slice of macadam through a cornfield 
K01   4 when Geno arrived in Barrington seventeen years ago, but for him it 
K01   5 was ruined now. Neon signs had arrived a decade ago, advertising a 
K01   6 pizza shop and a bowling alley. Gas stations went up quickly, 
K01   7 followed by an A&P, a Super Drug, and a Miracle Mart.<p/>
K01   8 <p_>Soon after their wedding, Geno and Susan had moved into a 
K01   9 redbrick apartment building two blocks off campus on a leafy 
K01  10 elm-shaded street. First the elms died, then a Pizza Hut opened up 
K01  11 across the street, and the traffic worsened. Frustrated, they began 
K01  12 hunting for a farmhouse outside of town.<p/>
K01  13 <p_>Geno loved the remoter parts of Vermont, places where one could 
K01  14 imagine the twentieth century had barely begun. The farmhouse he 
K01  15 and Susan found, with a long view of Mount Isaac, was perfect. 
K01  16 Sitting in an Adirondack chair on the front lawn, one could believe 
K01  17 the year was 1911.<p/>
K01  18 <p_>The main thing about Vermont, for Geno, was that it wasn't New 
K01  19 Jersey. His home state embodied the worst aspects of this 
K01  20 catastrophic century. At one time its small towns were full of 
K01  21 gingerbreaded wood-frame houses, redbrick Federals, neoclassical 
K01  22 granite banks, and shimmering limestone court<?_>-<?/>houses. These 
K01  23 had given way to 'developments' of split-level eyesores with 
K01  24 aluminum siding and screened-in patios.<p/>
K01  25 <p_>Geno had grown up in the standard prefab with a two-car garage 
K01  26 beneath a master bedroom. His father put a basketball hoop over the 
K01  27 garage doors when he was eight, making his son instantly popular in 
K01  28 the neighborhood. A gang of boys filled the driveway every 
K01  29 afternoon in summer, and a running pick-up game continued until 
K01  30 Geno's father, who sold wall-to-wall carpeting for a building 
K01  31 supply company in Meadow Pond, arrived home at five-thirty sharp 
K01  32 for supper.<p/>
K01  33 <p_>Mr. Genovese always came home frazzled, and he gulped a double 
K01  34 Manhattan to calm his nerves. Mrs. Genovese made sure the boys 
K01  35 abandoned the hoop just before her husband's black Buick nosed into 
K01  36 the driveway.<p/>
K01  37 <p_>An only child, Geno was raised to believe the universe revolved 
K01  38 around him, although he'd been conscious of his father's business 
K01  39 troubles from an early age. Mr. Genovese began in sales after the 
K01  40 war, working first in automotive supplies. He moved, briefly, to a 
K01  41 feed supply store. His cousin, Nick Giacometti, hired him at the 
K01  42 building supply company in 1957, and Mr. Genovese gravitated to 
K01  43 industrial carpeting. He wore a suit to work every day with a 
K01  44 starched shirt and a flowery tie, and it meant a great deal to him 
K01  45 that he had a 'white collar' job. It upset him that business was 
K01  46 never very good.<p/>
K01  47 <p_>Mr. Genovese wanted Geno to pursue a career in sales, but his 
K01  48 son's academic bent scratched that idea. The scholarship to 
K01  49 Dartmouth sealed Geno's fate. From then on, he was never not in 
K01  50 school, as student or teacher. And never in New Jersey.<p/>
K01  51 <p_>The disturbing thing was that Barrington had come to resemble 
K01  52 his hometown more than ever, with condos and tracts of prefab 
K01  53 houses spreading like cancer cells on the town's periphery. The 
K01  54 village green, with its churches and banks and nineteenth-century 
K01  55 storefronts, was - thank God - preserved by tourism. Kitsch had its 
K01  56 up side, too. But Geno hadn't quite noticed, until now, how 
K01  57 terrifyingly ugly the place was becoming.<p/>
K01  58 <p_>The college remained pristine, but its unreality hit Geno hard 
K01  59 as the taxi passed through its stone gates. What was he doing here 
K01  60 anyway? He must call his father-in-law soon about that loan. If 
K01  61 only he could buy, say, twenty thousand dollars of penny stocks in 
K01  62 gold mining companies in Peru, his future would be assured. If his 
K01  63 calculations were correct, in five years that stock would 
K01  64 appreciate tenfold, and he could quit his teaching job, move to the 
K01  65 Caribbean, and write poetry till the world turned cold.<p/>
K01  66 <p_>Geno walked into Milton House with a heavy heart, trying not to 
K01  67 breathe in the smell of institutional floorwax. The corridor was 
K01  68 dark.<p/>
K01  69 <p_><quote_>"Hi, Geno,"<quote/> a voice cried, rather 
K01  70 pleasantly.<p/>
K01  71 <p_>Geno startled, turning to face Agnes Wild.<p/>
K01  72 <p_><quote_>"Did I frighten you?"<quote/><p/>
K01  73 <p_><quote_>"You always frighten me."<quote/><p/>
K01  74 <p_><quote_>"I'm glad I ran into you,"<quote/> she said.<p/>
K01  75 <p_><quote|>"Ditto."<p/>
K01  76 <p_><quote|>"Really?"<p/>
K01  77 <p_><quote_>"You really fucked me this time, Agnes."<quote/><p/>
K01  78 <p_>Agnes looked at him. <quote_>"You think I put Lizzie up to 
K01  79 this, don't you?"<quote/> She seemed hurt.<p/>
K01  80 <p_><quote_>"I do."<quote/><p/>
K01  81 <p_><quote_>"Well, I didn't. I had nothing to do with 
K01  82 it."<quote/><p/>
K01  83 <p_>Geno stared at her, uncertain.<p/>
K01  84 <p_><quote_>"I'd tell you if I did. You know that. Nothing is 
K01  85 gained by going behind people's backs."<quote/><p/>
K01  86 <p_>Geno sighed. She was probably telling the truth. Indeed, he 
K01  87 often told Susan that Agnes was too unimaginative to lie. 
K01  88 <quote_>"I assumed you were pissed off about that Virginia Woolf 
K01  89 thing."<quote/><p/>
K01  90 <p_><quote_>"I thought that I was more interested in Woolf than you 
K01  91 were."<quote/><p/>
K01  92 <p_><quote_>"You are."<quote/><p/>
K01  93 <p_><quote_>"So it was natural that I should want to supervise 
K01  94 Lizzie."<quote/><p/>
K01  95 <p_><quote_>"It was."<quote/> He looked down like a small boy. 
K01  96 <quote_>"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have jumped to 
K01  97 conclusions."<quote/><p/>
K01  98 <p_><quote_>"I accept your apology. But you've got a lot of work to 
K01  99 do with Lizzie Nash."<quote/><p/>
K01 100 <p_><quote_>"And the Committee on Human Relations."<quote/><p/>
K01 101 <p_><quote_>"I don't know what's going to happen there."<quote/><p/>
K01 102 <p_><quote_>"You're the chairperson!"<quote/><p/>
K01 103 <p_><quote_>"The materials you presented are ...well ...hard to 
K01 104 digest. We're not legal experts, you know. I don't think we're 
K01 105 looking at a legal situation in any case. But there's a point of 
K01 106 morality here."<quote/><p/>
K01 107 <p_><quote_>"Ah ...morality. Yes."<quote/><p/>
K01 108 <p_>Geno went into his office, closed the door, and drew the 
K01 109 blinds. He sat back in his desk chair, his feet on the desk, and 
K01 110 closed his eyes, feeling a sharp throb in each temple. His head was 
K01 111 killing him now. It seemed that his life - his teaching life, his 
K01 112 writing life, his family life - had hit its nadir. It was difficult 
K01 113 to imagine how he could regain his wife's trust or find a way to 
K01 114 relate to the boys that felt solid and real. The idea of divorce 
K01 115 appalled him. A marriage was a mystical unit, consecrated by human 
K01 116 and divine love. And he was determined to act responsibly and well 
K01 117 - and to earn the union he desired - even if it meant uprooting, 
K01 118 moving to a new country, burning his house to the ground to begin 
K01 119 again, with bricks and mortar. The time had come, he decided, to 
K01 120 rebuild.<p/>
K01 121 <p_>A knock came to the door, and he shuddered. Not Lizzie Nash, he 
K01 122 hoped. Or Agnes.<p/>
K01 123 <p_><quote|>"Hello?" he called weakly.<p/>
K01 124 <p_><quote_>"Excuse me?"<quote/> said Chap Baloo, pushing the door 
K01 125 wide. <quote_>"That you, old boy?"<quote/><p/>
K01 126 <p_><quote_>"Nobody here but us chickens."<quote/><p/>
K01 127 <p_>Baloo made himself comfortable in the chair by the 
K01 128 book<?_>-<?/>case. <quote_>"I had a call from Botner this 
K01 129 morning,"<quote/> Baloo said. <quote_>"They apparently don't have a 
K01 130 decision on your case. Not yet."<quote/><p/>
K01 131 <p_><quote_>"Fuck them,"<quote/> Geno said.<p/>
K01 132 <p_>Baloo shifted uncomfortably, twisting his mouth to one side 
K01 133 unconsciously. <quote_>"That's not a good attitude, Geno,"<quote/> 
K01 134 he said.<p/>
K01 135 <p_><quote_>"Frankly, I don't care anymore."<quote/><p/>
K01 136 <p_>Baloo said, <quote_>"I don't mean to frighten you, but they 
K01 137 could suspend you for a term. Maybe dock your salary."<quote/><p/>
K01 138 <p_><quote_>"Can they fire me?"<quote/><p/>
K01 139 <p_><quote_>"You've got tenure, but I reckon anything's 
K01 140 possible."<quote/> His Southern accent seemed to thicken. 
K01 141 <quote_>"It's a dark mood this country's in."<quote/><p/>
K01 142 <p_><quote_>"I didn't do anything wrong."<quote/><p/>
K01 143 <p_>Baloo took a pipe from his jacket pocket, though he didn't 
K01 144 intend to light it. Pipes were conversation props for him - a 
K01 145 residue of Southern gentility. <quote_>"I'm sorry if this seems to 
K01 146 be ruining your summer,"<quote/> he said.<p/>
K01 147 <p_><quote_>"My summer is fine."<quote/><p/>
K01 148 <p_><quote_>"I saw Susan at the post office just a while ago. She 
K01 149 looked awful."<quote/><p/>
K01 150 <p_><quote_>"She's had a bad year,"<quote/> Geno said. <quote_>"And 
K01 151 I guess I haven't made life easy for her."<quote/><p/>
K01 152 <p_><quote|>"Women," said Baloo. <quote_>"You know the old saying, 
K01 153 'Can't live with them, can't live without them.'"<quote/> With 
K01 154 this, he winked and left, closing the door behind him.<p/>
K01 155 <p_>On the way home in the taxi, Geno thought about Baloo's silly 
K01 156 old saw. He'd heard it many times, and it typified a familiar male 
K01 157 way of regarding women as a kind of foreign country. As an only 
K01 158 child, he hadn't really known a woman close up until quite late in 
K01 159 adolescence, unless you counted his mother. Susan was the first 
K01 160 woman he'd lived with intimately, and he recalled the strangeness 
K01 161 of their first months together. Everything about her intrigued him: 
K01 162 her smells, her daily habits, the way she stood in front of the 
K01 163 mirror and looked into her own eyes. He could never look into his 
K01 164 own eyes so intensely.<p/>
K01 165 <p_>Susan was bending over a row of flowers when he arrived. She 
K01 166 wore a big straw sombrero and jeans, and even though she must have 
K01 167 heard the taxi grinding over the pebbles as it climbed the 
K01 168 driveway, she didn't look around.<p/>
K01 169 <p_>Geno paid the driver and walked to where she was clawing up 
K01 170 weeds, and he stood quietly behind her. <quote_>"We could use some 
K01 171 rain, huh?"<quote/> he said, at last.<p/>
K01 172 <p_>She continued with her claw, piling the granular leaves of 
K01 173 dandelions in a clump beside her.<p/>
K01 174 <p_><quote_>"I guess you're not talking, is that it?"<quote/><p/>
K01 175 <p_>Susan sighed, rocking back on her thighs. Then she started 
K01 176 crying. She put her head in her gloved hands, and her shoulders 
K01 177 shook.<p/>
K01 178 <p_>He knelt beside her. It was so hard to think of anything to say 
K01 179 to someone so obviously in pain. What was worse, he felt 
K01 180 responsible for that pain.<p/>
K01 181 <p_><quote_>"I'm sorry, Susie,"<quote/> he said.<p/>
K01 182 <p_>She rose slowly, wiping her eyes on a flannel shirtsleeve.<p/>
K01 183 <p_><quote_>"I guess I'm out of control these days."<quote/> He was 
K01 184 looking at the ground as he talked. <quote_>"Sometimes I wish we 
K01 185 could just get out of here, you know. Start again somewhere else. I 
K01 186 might quit teaching."<quote/><p/>
K01 187 <p_><quote_>"You're broke,"<quote/> she said, laughing through the 
K01 188 tears now - like sun tearing through a scrim of rain.<p/>
K01 189 <p_><quote_>"So what?"<quote/><p/>
K01 190 <p_><quote_>"Like hippies, huh?"<quote/><p/>
K01 191 <p_>He became excited now as a green floating image - an island - 
K01 192 appeared in his mind. He closed his eyes to see it more clearly. It 
K01 193 was the Dominican Republic, he was sure.<p/>
K01 194 <p_><quote_>"We could house-sit in Maine,"<quote/> Susan said.<p/>
K01 195 <p_><quote|>"Maine?"<p/>
K01 196 <p_><quote_>"Help on a lobster boat or something."<quote/><p/>
K01 197 <p_><quote_>"How about the Dominican Republic? Maine is too 
K01 198 cold,"<quote/> he said. <quote_>"The D.R. is perfect - never too 
K01 199 cold or hot."<quote/><p/>
K01 200 <p_>Susan studied his face like a math problem, saying nothing.<p/>
K01 201 <p_>Geno said, <quote_>"I'm serious."<quote/><p/>
K01 202 <p_><quote_>"I know you are,"<quote/> she said.<p/>
K01 203 <p_>Geno came close to her now, wiping the wetness from her eyes 
K01 204 with his thumbs. Then he didn't kiss her exactly. He just stood 
K01 205 with his lips pressed to hers, slowly breathing her in - the smell 
K01 206 of dirt and sweat, tears and sun. She was earth and air, he 
K01 207 thought. She was fire and water.<p/>
K01 208 <p_><quote_>"I love you,"<quote/> he said. <quote_>"I like you. And 
K01 209 I never hate you."<quote/><p/>
K01 210 <p_><quote_>"I'm glad you never hate me,"<quote/> she said.<p/>
K01 211 <p_>She put her head on his shoulder, and he let his fingers cup 
K01 212 her gourdlike head, feeling her skull beneath the scalp. And he 
K01 213 knew he loved her, loved her.<p/>
K01 214 <h_><p_>Chapter 21<p/><h/>
K01 215 <p_>Charles had spent five days in the mountains with Yellow Moon, 
K01 216 a mud-spattered woman in her midtwenties. She was from Arkansas, 
K01 217 with an accent thick as kudzu, though she had most recently lived 
K01 218 in Boulder. Her name made sense if you looked at her without 
K01 219 preconceptions: the whites of her eyes were indeed yellow, while 
K01 220 her head was moonlike; even her scalp - visible beneath her 
K01 221 bleached-out hair - glowed with a yellowy tint.<p/>
K01 222 <p_>She and Charles pitched a tent in the north field adjacent to 
K01 223 Geno and Susan's house, and it was established that they could 
K01 224 either use the kitchen to cook for themselves or, if they 
K01 225 preferred, eat with the family.<p/>
K01 226 <p_><quote_>"I'm certainly a cook,"<quote/> Yellow Moon volunteered 
K01 227 on the first night, her words like mismatched beads on a string. 
K01 228 <quote_>"I do a rice and beans dish much like the 
K01 229 Caribbeans."<quote/><p/>
K01 230 <p_>Geno wondered how was it possible that Charles, who was so 
K01 231 intelligent, could have stuck himself with such a woman.<p/>
K01 232 <p_><quote_>"The Cubans eat rice and beans, don't they?"<quote/> 
K01 233 Susan asked.<p/>
K01 234 
K02   1 <#FROWN:K02\><p_><quote_>"Not really. It's more like seeing things 
K02   2 as they are. Kind of like the old acid days."<quote/><p/>
K02   3 <p_><quote_>"Well, it gets you rolling in the morning."<quote/> She 
K02   4 stood up abruptly with her purse under her elbow. <quote_>"Call 
K02   5 me,"<quote/> she said, and went out.<p/>
K02   6 <p_>Frank felt a little gust and thought, I will. He paid for 
K02   7 breakfast and went outside where a parking lot full of cars rested, 
K02   8 seemed to await their mission. Wonderful when day had not begun, 
K02   9 when only the breakfast waitresses and airline crews were 
K02  10 conspicuously there and ready for the rest of the world if it ever 
K02  11 woke up. Frank looked off to the silhouettes of the city and the 
K02  12 mountains beyond. Odd hours always took him back to the days of 
K02  13 weirdness, to the exhilaration of being out of step. He went on 
K02  14 contemplating the way the world was reabsorbing him and his 
K02  15 friends, terrified people coming to resemble their parents, their 
K02  16 dogs, their country, their seatmates, after a pretty good spell of 
K02  17 resembling only themselves. This, thought Frank, lacks tragic 
K02  18 dimension almost as certainly as podiatry does. But it holds me in 
K02  19 a certain ache to imagine I'm actually as much a businessman as my 
K02  20 father.<p/>
K02  21 <p_>But Frank was apprehensive about going to work. He was, after 
K02  22 all, across the hall from Lucy. That hadn't changed. And he was 
K02  23 disquieted about seeing her this morning. Despite twenty years of 
K02  24 trying to reduce sex to the same status as the handshake, its 
K02  25 reduction was unreliable and it frequently had an unwelcome larger 
K02  26 significance. Lovemaking still seemed to test the emotional 
K02  27 assumptions that led up to it, and in Frank's case he somehow found 
K02  28 out that he was never going to be in love with Lucy. It was 
K02  29 important to act on this perception before her nose seemed to grow 
K02  30 or her mouth to hang open vacantly, her vocabulary to shrink or her 
K02  31 feet to slap awkwardly on the linoleum. He was going to have to 
K02  32 drum up some drippy conversation about friendship, a deadening 
K02  33 policy statement that would reduce everything to awkwardness.<p/>
K02  34 <p_>He needn't have worried. She was in the hallway when he 
K02  35 arrived. She wrinkled her face at the sight of him, shook her head 
K02  36 and disappeared into her office. He went into his own without 
K02  37 greeting Eileen, his secretary. He tore down the Eskimo poster with 
K02  38 disgust and, briefly, hated himself. A new set of tickets and 
K02  39 itinerary lay on his desk. He opened the itinerary. It said, 
K02  40 <quote|>"Hell." Nothing else.<p/>
K02  41 <p_>He picked up his phone.<p/>
K02  42 <p_><quote|>"Eileen."<p/>
K02  43 <p_><quote_>"Yes, Mr. Copenhaver."<quote/><p/>
K02  44 <p_><quote_>"Good morning."<quote/><p/>
K02  45 <p_><quote_>"Good morning."<quote/><p/>
K02  46 <p_><quote_>"My mind was elsewhere."<quote/><p/>
K02  47 <p_><quote_>"Don't worry about it."<quote/><p/>
K02  48 <p_><quote_>"Thank you. Now, can you get me Lucy across the 
K02  49 hall."<quote/><p/>
K02  50 <p_>The phone rang only once.<p/>
K02  51 <p_><quote_>"Lucy, Frank."<quote/><p/>
K02  52 <p_><quote|>"Yes."<p/>
K02  53 <p_><quote_>"Is there something wrong?"<quote/><p/>
K02  54 <p_><quote_>"Is there something wrong..."<quote/> she said. He knew 
K02  55 now, of course, that there was.<p/>
K02  56 <p_><quote_>"I thought we'd had a nice evening."<quote/><p/>
K02  57 <p_><quote_>"We had, to a point."<quote/><p/>
K02  58 <p_><quote_>"And at what point did you think it went 
K02  59 downhill?"<quote/><p/>
K02  60 <p_><quote_>"At the point you called me Gracie."<quote/><p/>
K02  61 <p_><quote_>"I did that, did I?"<quote/><p/>
K02  62 <p_><quote_>"About seven times."<quote/><p/>
K02  63 <p_><quote|>"Sorry."<p/>
K02  64 <p_><quote_>"I suppose it's not your fault, Frank. But I'm not your 
K02  65 old wife."<quote/><p/>
K02  66 <p_><quote_>"Of course not."<quote/><p/>
K02  67 <p_>He hung the phone up and leaned on his hands. He could have 
K02  68 said, <quote_>"No, you're not my old wife. You're my wife's old 
K02  69 friend. Some friend!"<quote/><p/>
K02  70 <p_>For some reason, he called June up at the dealership. They had 
K02  71 to page her on the lot. By the time she came to the phone, he had 
K02  72 forgotten why it had seemed so necessary to call her. Nevertheless, 
K02  73 he told her what had happened. She listened quietly. He explained 
K02  74 as discreetly as he could that he had said one or two inappropriate 
K02  75 things during a spell of delightful lovemaking and it had ruined 
K02  76 everything. June said,<quote_>"I can't get into it. When they're 
K02  77 doing their job, they can call me John Brown for all I 
K02  78 care."<quote/> Frank thanked her anyway and hung up, then thanked 
K02  79 her to himself for this burst of redneck health.<p/>
K02  80 <p_>He went down to Lucy's office and sat under the waterfall while 
K02  81 Lucy watched him and waited for him to say something.<p/>
K02  82 <p_><quote_>"Are you still angry?"<quote/> he said finally.<p/>
K02  83 <p_><quote_>"No. I never was angry."<quote/><p/>
K02  84 <p_><quote_>"I don't want to lay this on you, but if you weren't 
K02  85 angry, you were hurt."<quote/><p/>
K02  86 <p_><quote_>"Then I was angry, but I'm not angry now."<quote/><p/>
K02  87 <p_>Some hours ago, he thought, she was chewing sheets and going 
K02  88 <quote_>"Oof, oof, oof!"<quote/> while, evidently, I was going, 
K02  89 <quote_>"Oh, Gracie, oh, Gracie!"<quote/> Quite a picture. Oh, 
K02  90 dear.<p/>
K02  91 <p_>Then she smiled and said, <quote_>"This time, I'm not sending 
K02  92 you anywhere."<quote/> The air had apparently cleared. Frank left 
K02  93 her office, thinking, What a nice person.<p/>
K02  94 <p_>Frank straightened up his desk and went back out through the 
K02  95 reception area. <quote_>"I'm going to the ranch,"<quote/> he 
K02  96 said.<p/>
K02  97 <p_><quote_>"Can you be reached there?"<quote/> asked Eileen.<p/>
K02  98 <p_><quote_>"No, but I'll be back."<quote/><p/>
K02  99 <p_>Frank drove north out of town, cutting through the subdivisions 
K02 100 that lay around the old town center. Frank had a reluctant 
K02 101 affection for these suburbs, with their repetitious shapes and 
K02 102 lawns and basketball hoops and garages. He appreciated their 
K02 103 regularity.<p/>
K02 104 <p_>The road wound up through dryland farms of oats and malting 
K02 105 barley, golden blankets in the middle of sagebrush country, toward 
K02 106 the tall brown of snowy mountains. The city had almost disappeared 
K02 107 behind him, yet from the front gate of the home place he could 
K02 108 still make it out. A bright serration against the hills.<p/>
K02 109 <p_>Frank stopped right in front of the house where his family once 
K02 110 lived, a substantial farmhouse with a low, deep porch across the 
K02 111 entire front, white with blue shutters and a blue shingled roof. 
K02 112 The house sat on a fieldstone cellar with deep-set airyway windows 
K02 113 at regular intervals beneath the porch. The house was locked up. In 
K02 114 front, the tall hollyhocks his grandmother had taken such care of 
K02 115 stood up boldly through the quack grass and competed along the 
K02 116 border of the porch with the ocher shafts of henbane. The junipers 
K02 117 hadn't been trimmed and streaks of brown penetrated their dark 
K02 118 green masses. It was a fine old house that gave Frank the 
K02 119 creeps.<p/>
K02 120 <p_>He drove slowly past it toward the barn and outbuildings, 
K02 121 looking for Boyd Jarrell, his hired man. He had already seen 
K02 122 Jarrell's truck from the house, and when he crossed the cattle 
K02 123 guard into the equipment compound, he watched Jarrell walk past the 
K02 124 granary without looking up at Frank's car. He saw that Jarrell 
K02 125 would be in a foul mood, and felt a slight sinking in his stomach. 
K02 126 Boyd liked Mike but didn't like Frank. Mike came out here and 
K02 127 played rancher with Boyd, building fence on the weekends or 
K02 128 irrigating, and in general dignifying Boyd's job by doing an 
K02 129 incompetent imitation of it. Frank could never understand why this 
K02 130 would ingratiate Mike to Boyd, but he guessed it was a form of 
K02 131 tribute.<p/>
K02 132 <p_>Frank parked the car and walked toward the granary. Jarrell now 
K02 133 crossed the compound going the other way, carrying an irrigating 
K02 134 shovel and a length of tow chain over his shoulder.<p/>
K02 135 <p_><quote|>"Boyd," Frank called, and Jarrell stopped, paused and 
K02 136 looked over at Frank. <quote_>"Have you got a minute?"<quote/><p/>
K02 137 <p_><quote_>"I might."<quote/><p/>
K02 138 <p_>Frank walked over to him.<p/>
K02 139 <p_><quote_>"I spoke to Lowry Equipment on Friday,"<quote/> said 
K02 140 Frank, <quote_>"and the loader's fixed on the tractor. So, that's 
K02 141 ready to go whenever you need it."<quote/><p/>
K02 142 <p_><quote_>"If that's all it was."<quote/><p/>
K02 143 <p_><quote_>"That's right. But I assume it's okay."<quote/><p/>
K02 144 <p_>Jarrell looked away and smiled. Frank let it fall silent for a 
K02 145 minute.<p/>
K02 146 <p_><quote_>"I've got a buyer to look at our calves on 
K02 147 Monday."<quote/><p/>
K02 148 <p_><quote_>"I hope he can find them."<quote/><p/>
K02 149 <p_>Frank looked at Jarrell. Jarrell had him by fifty pounds and 
K02 150 ten years. But he had put down his mark.<p/>
K02 151 <p_><quote_>"He'll find them,"<quote/> Frank said. <quote_>"You'll 
K02 152 take him to them. Or you'll get out."<quote/><p/>
K02 153 <p_>Frank turned to go to his car.<p/>
K02 154 <p_><quote_>"Fuck you, Copenhaver,"<quote/> he heard Jarrell say, 
K02 155 like a concussion or a huge sneeze, and Frank kept walking. He 
K02 156 heard Jarrell walk up behind him, and in a moment Frank's hat was 
K02 157 slapped off his head. He bent to pick it up, then kept going to his 
K02 158 car. Jarrell laughed and went to his truck, parked alongside the 
K02 159 barn.<p/>
K02 160 <p_>Frank stopped, then turned. He went back to where Jarrell 
K02 161 stood. <quote_>"Why did you do that, Boyd?"<quote/><p/>
K02 162 <p_><quote_>"Because I don't like people telling me what to 
K02 163 do."<quote/><p/>
K02 164 <p_><quote_>"Well, Boyd, you should have thought of 
K02 165 that."<quote/><p/>
K02 166 <p_><quote_>"Thought of that when, you goddamn sonofabitch? When I 
K02 167 let you tell me what to do?"<quote/><p/>
K02 168 <p_><quote_>"When you came to work for us, Boyd. You knew what the 
K02 169 deal was. I told you what the deal was. And I might have been the 
K02 170 guy to give you your last chance."<quote/> Jarrell crossed his arms 
K02 171 and smiled at a faraway place. <quote_>"I wouldn't hesitate to fire 
K02 172 you right now except for the thought you might go back and beat up 
K02 173 your wife like you did last time."<quote/> Jarrell swung his gaze 
K02 174 from the cloudy faraway and stared hard and flat into Frank's face. 
K02 175 If it happens it happens, Frank thought. I couldn't live with 
K02 176 myself if I shut up now. <quote_>"Don't look at me, it was in the 
K02 177 papers. And you know what? I had the same thought everybody else 
K02 178 did: what kind of guy puts a hundred-ten-pound woman in the 
K02 179 Deaconess Hospital? What kind of man is that? Good luck on your 
K02 180 next job, Boyd."<quote/><p/>
K02 181 <p_>Frank turned and began to walk toward his car. He hadn't gone 
K02 182 many steps before he heard Jarrell behind him again. He kept 
K02 183 walking and the steps ceased. He got in his car and drove out of 
K02 184 the drive, past the unlucky house, and tried to picture the exact 
K02 185 spot where Jarrell stood when he left.<p/>
K02 186 <p_>When he got back to the office, he called Mrs. Jarrell and 
K02 187 explained that he had had to let Boyd go, that Boyd was a fine man 
K02 188 and a fine worker but that the time had come for each of them to 
K02 189 get on with their lives in a different way. He had had to tell 
K02 190 people before that it was time to get on with their lives. He said 
K02 191 this in a conciliatory voice that sounded, after a bit, like that 
K02 192 of a radio announcer or an advertisement for a commercial halfway 
K02 193 house for disturbed youths. Mrs. Jarrell at least let him finish, 
K02 194 then called him every foul name he had ever heard, including a few 
K02 195 he was unsure of, like <quote_>"spastic morphodite."<quote/> Frank 
K02 196 squinted in pain through this barrage and said that, nevertheless, 
K02 197 he wished them all the luck in the world. His voice was a croak.<p/>
K02 198 <p_><quote_>"Eat shit,"<quote/> said Mrs. Jarrell. <quote_>"I hope 
K02 199 you have a stroke."<quote/><p/>
K02 200 <p_>Pause for thought. Some direct suggestions from Mrs. Jarrell. 
K02 201 The same day Hell was suggested as a travel destination -and by a 
K02 202 lover of the previous night! He went to see his brother Mike.<p/>
K02 203 <p_>Mike was an orthodontist, and Frank had to wait until almost 
K02 204 noon in his office, with bucktoothed preteens, reading kids' 
K02 205 magazines before Mike had him in. They sat in the dental lab and 
K02 206 talked, fat Mike still in his pale green smock, his round red face 
K02 207 revealing the constant optimism that came of doing some one small 
K02 208 thing in the world, namely pushing young teeth back and keeping 
K02 209 them there. Frank looked around at the instruments, at the 
K02 210 remarkable order.<p/>
K02 211 <p_><quote|>"Mike," said Frank, <quote_>"the ranch is making me 
K02 212 crazy."<quote/><p/>
K02 213 <p_><quote_>"You always tell me this when irrigation 
K02 214 starts."<quote/><p/>
K02 215 <p_><quote_>"I fired that cocksucker Jarrell."<quote/><p/>
K02 216 <p_><quote_>"I wish you hadn't done that. He's a hard 
K02 217 worker."<quote/><p/>
K02 218 <p_><quote_>"I went out there today and he was in one of his cowboy 
K02 219 snits."<quote/><p/>
K02 220 <p_><quote_>"You shouldn't have gone out there. You know this 
K02 221 happens when irrigation water runs. Everybody becomes an 
K02 222 animal."<quote/><p/>
K02 223 <p_><quote_>"I have to go out there. I had the tractor fixed for 
K02 224 the filthy shit. He busted it, bent the bucket and blew the 
K02 225 hydraulics. But he can't talk to anyone so I got it fixed. I tell 
K02 226 him this and it just seems to make him madder.
K02 227 
K03   1 <#FROWN:K03\><p_>There she is. No dancing brothers are in this 
K03   2 place, nor any breathless girls waiting for the white bulb to be 
K03   3 exchanged for the blue. This is an adult party - what goes on goes 
K03   4 on in bright light. The illegal liquor is not secret and the 
K03   5 secrets are not forbidden. Pay a dollar or two when you enter and 
K03   6 what you say is smarter, funnier, than it would be in your own 
K03   7 kitchen. Your wit surfaces over and over like the rush of foam to 
K03   8 the rim. The laughter is like pealing bells that don't need a hand 
K03   9 to pull on the rope; it just goes on and on until you are weak with 
K03  10 it. You can drink the safe gin if you like, or stick to beer, but 
K03  11 you don't need either because a touch on the knee, accidental or on 
K03  12 purpose, alerts the blood like a shot of pre-Pro bourbon or two 
K03  13 fingers pinching your nipple. Your spirit lifts to the ceiling 
K03  14 where it floats for a bit looking down with pleasure on the 
K03  15 dressed-up nakedness below. You know something wicked is going on 
K03  16 in a room with a closed door. But there is enough dazzle and 
K03  17 mischief here, where partners cling or exchange at the urging of a 
K03  18 heartbreaking vocal.<p/>
K03  19 <p_>Dorcas is satisfied, content. Two arms clasp her and she is 
K03  20 able to rest her cheek on her own shoulder while her wrists cross 
K03  21 behind his neck. It's good they don't need much space to dance in 
K03  22 because there isn't any. The room is packed. Men groan their 
K03  23 satisfaction; women hum anticipation. The music bends, falls to its 
K03  24 knees to embrace them all, encourage them all to live a little, why 
K03  25 don't you? since this is the it you've been looking for.<p/>
K03  26 <p_>Her partner does not whisper in Dorcas' ear. His promises are 
K03  27 already clear in the chin he presses into her hair, the fingertips 
K03  28 that stay. She stretches up to encircle his neck. He bends to help 
K03  29 her do it. They agree on everything above the waist and below: 
K03  30 muscle, tendon, bone joint and marrow cooperate. And if the dancers 
K03  31 hesitate, have a moment of doubt, the music will solve and dissolve 
K03  32 any question.<p/>
K03  33 <p_>Dorcas is happy. Happier than she has ever been anytime. No 
K03  34 white strands grow in her partner's mustache. He is up and coming. 
K03  35 Hawk-eyed, tireless and a little cruel. He has never given her a 
K03  36 present or even thought about it. Sometimes he is where he says he 
K03  37 will be; sometimes not. Other women want him - badly - and he has 
K03  38 been selective. What they want and the prize it is his to give is 
K03  39 his savvy self. What could a pair of silk stockings be compared to 
K03  40 him? No contest. Dorcas is lucky. Knows it. And is as happy as she 
K03  41 has ever been anytime.<p/>
K03  42 <p_><*_>three-dots<*/><p/>
K03  43 <p_><quote_>"He's coming for me. I know he is because I know how 
K03  44 flat his eyes went when I told him not to. And how they raced 
K03  45 afterward. I didn't say it nicely, although I meant to. I practiced 
K03  46 the points; in front of the mirror I went through them one by one: 
K03  47 the sneaking around, and his wife and all. I never said anything 
K03  48 about our ages or Acton. Nothing about Acton. But he argued with me 
K03  49 so I said, Leave me alone. Just leave me alone. Get away from me. 
K03  50 You bring me another bottle of cologne I'll drink it and die you 
K03  51 don't leave me alone.<p/>
K03  52 <p_>"He said, You can't die from cologne.<p/>
K03  53 <p_>"I said, You know what I mean.<p/>
K03  54 <p_>"He said, You want me to leave my wife?<p/>
K03  55 <p_>"I said, No! I want you to leave <tf|>me. I don't want you 
K03  56 inside me. I don't want you beside me. I hate this room. I don't 
K03  57 want to be here and don't come looking for me.<p/>
K03  58 <p_>"He said, Why?<p/>
K03  59 <p_>"I said, Because. Because. Because.<p/>
K03  60 <p_>"He said, Because what?<p/>
K03  61 <p_>"I said, Because you make me sick.<p/>
K03  62 <p_>"Sick? I make you sick?<p/>
K03  63 <p_>"Sick of myself and sick of you.<p/>
K03  64 <p_>"I didn't mean that part ... about being sick. He didn't. Make 
K03  65 me sick, I mean. What I wanted to let him know was that I had this 
K03  66 chance to have Acton and I wanted it and I wanted girlfriends to 
K03  67 talk to about it. About where we went and what he did. About 
K03  68 things. About stuff. What good are secrets if you can't talk to 
K03  69 anybody about them? I sort of hinted about Joe and me to Felice and 
K03  70 she laughed before she stared at me and then frowned.<p/>
K03  71 <p_>"I couldn't tell him all that because I had practiced the other 
K03  72 points and got mixed up.<p/>
K03  73 <p_>"But he's coming for me. I know it. He's been looking for me 
K03  74 all over. Maybe tomorrow he'll find me. Maybe tonight. Way out 
K03  75 here; all the way out here.<p/>
K03  76 <p_>"When we got off the streetcar, me and Acton and Felice, I 
K03  77 thought he was there in the doorway next to the candy store, but it 
K03  78 wasn't him. Not yet. I think I see him everywhere. I know he's 
K03  79 looking and now I know he's coming.<p/>
K03  80 <p_>"He didn't even care what I looked like. I could be anything, 
K03  81 do anything - and it pleased him. Something about that made me mad. 
K03  82 I don't know.<p/>
K03  83 <p_>"Acton, now, he tells me when he doesn't like the way I fix my 
K03  84 hair. Then I do it how he likes it. I never wear glasses when he is 
K03  85 with me and I changed my laugh for him to one he likes better. I 
K03  86 think he does. I know he didn't like it before. And I play with my 
K03  87 food now. Joe liked for me to eat it all up and want more. Acton 
K03  88 gives me a quiet look when I ask for seconds. He worries about me 
K03  89 that way. Joe never did. Joe didn't care what kind of woman I was. 
K03  90 He should have. I cared. I wanted to have a personality and with 
K03  91 Acton I'm getting one. I have a look now. What pencil-thin eyebrows 
K03  92 do for my face is a dream. All my bracelets are just below my 
K03  93 elbow. Sometimes I knot my stockings below, not above, my knees. 
K03  94 Three straps are across my instep and at home I have shoes with 
K03  95 leather cut out to look like lace.<p/>
K03  96 <p_>"He is coming for me. Maybe tonight. Maybe here.<p/>
K03  97 <p_>"If he does he will look and see how close me and Acton dance. 
K03  98 How I rest my head on my arm holding on to him. The hem of my skirt 
K03  99 drapes down in back and taps the calves of my legs while we rock 
K03 100 back and forth, then side to side. The whole front of us touches. 
K03 101 Nothing can get between us we are so close. Lots of girls here want 
K03 102 to be doing this with him. I can see them when I open my eyes to 
K03 103 look past his neck. I rub my thumbnail over his nape so the girls 
K03 104 will know I know they want him. He doesn't like it and turns his 
K03 105 head to make me stop touching his neck that way. I stop.<p/>
K03 106 <p_>"Joe wouldn't care. I could rub anywhere on him. He let me draw 
K03 107 lipstick pictures in places he had to have a mirror to 
K03 108 see."<quote/><p/>
K03 109 <p_>Anything that happens after this party breaks up is nothing. 
K03 110 Everything is now. It's like war. Everyone is handsome, shining 
K03 111 just thinking about other people's blood. As though the red wash 
K03 112 flying from veins not theirs is facial makeup patented for its 
K03 113 glow. Inspiriting. Glamorous. Afterward there will be some chatter 
K03 114 and recapitulation of what went on; nothing though like the action 
K03 115 itself and the beat that pumps the heart. In war or at a party 
K03 116 everyone is wily, intriguing; goals are set and altered; alliances 
K03 117 rearranged. Partners and rivals devastated; new pairings 
K03 118 triumphant. The knockout possibilities knock Dorcas out because 
K03 119 here - with grown-ups and as in war - people play for keeps.<p/>
K03 120 <p_>"He's coming for me. And when he does he will see I'm not his 
K03 121 anymore. I'm Acton's and it's Acton I want to please. He expects 
K03 122 it. With Joe I pleased myself because he encouraged me to. With Joe 
K03 123 I worked the stick of the world, the power in my hand."<quote/><p/>
K03 124 <p_><*_>three-dots<*/><p/>
K03 125 <p_>Oh, the room - the music - the people leaning in doorways. 
K03 126 Silhouettes kiss behind curtains; playful fingers examine and 
K03 127 caress. This is the place where things pop. This is the market 
K03 128 where gesture is all: a tongue's lightning lick; a thumbnail 
K03 129 grazing the split cheeks of a purple plum. Any thrownaway lover in 
K03 130 wet unlaced shoes and a buttoned-up sweater under his coat is a 
K03 131 foreigner here. This is not the place for old men; this is the 
K03 132 place for romance.<p/>
K03 133 <p_><quote_>"He's here. Oh, look. God. He's crying. Am I falling? 
K03 134 Why am I falling? Acton is holding me up but I am falling anyway. 
K03 135 Heads are turning to look where I am falling. It's dark and now 
K03 136 it's light. I am lying on a bed. Somebody is wiping sweat from my 
K03 137 forehead, but I am cold, so cold. I see mouths moving; they are all 
K03 138 saying something to me I can't hear. Way out there at the foot of 
K03 139 the bed I see Acton. Blood is on his coat jacket and he is dabbing 
K03 140 at it with a white handkerchief. Now a woman takes the coat from 
K03 141 his shoulders. He is annoyed by the blood. It's my blood, I guess, 
K03 142 and it has stained through his jacket to his shirt. The hostess is 
K03 143 shouting. Her party is ruined. Acton looks angry; the woman brings 
K03 144 his jacket back and it is not clean the way it was before and the 
K03 145 way he likes it.<p/>
K03 146 <p_>"I can hear them now.<p/>
K03 147 <p_>"'Who? Who did this?'<p/>
K03 148 <p_>"I'm tired. Sleepy. I ought to be wide awake because something 
K03 149 important is happening.<p/>
K03 150 <p_>"'Who did this, girl? Who did this to you?'<p/>
K03 151 <p_>"They want me to say his name. Say it in public at last.<p/>
K03 152 <p_>"Acton has taken his shirt off. People are blocking the 
K03 153 doorway; some stretch behind them to get a better look. The record 
K03 154 playing is over. Somebody they have been waiting for is playing the 
K03 155 piano. A woman is singing too. The music is faint but I know the 
K03 156 words by heart.<p/>
K03 157 <p_>"Felice leans close. Her hand holding mine is too tight. I try 
K03 158 to say with my mouth to come nearer. Her eyes are bigger than the 
K03 159 light fixture on the ceiling. She asks me was it him.<p/>
K03 160 <p_>"They need me to say his name so they can go after him. Take 
K03 161 away his sample case with Rochelle and Bernadine and Faye inside. I 
K03 162 know his name but Mama won't tell. The world rocked from a stick 
K03 163 beneath my hand, Felice. There in that room with the ice sign in 
K03 164 the window.<p/>
K03 165 <p_>"Felice puts her ear on my lips and I scream it to her. I think 
K03 166 I am screaming it. I think I am.<p/>
K03 167 <p_>"People are leaving.<p/>
K03 168 <p_>"Now it's clear. Through the doorway I see the table. On it is 
K03 169 a brown wooden bowl, flat, low like a tray, full of spilling with 
K03 170 oranges. I want to sleep, but it is clear now. So clear the dark 
K03 171 bowl the pile of oranges. Just oranges. Bright. Listen. I don't 
K03 172 know who is that woman singing but I know the words by 
K03 173 heart."<quote/><p/>
K03 174 <p_>Sweetheart. That's what the weather was called. Sweetheart 
K03 175 weather, the prettiest day of the year. And that's when it started. 
K03 176 On a day so pure and steady trees preened. Standing in the middle 
K03 177 of a concrete slab, scared for their lives, they preened. Silly, 
K03 178 yes, but it was that kind of day. I could see Lenox widening 
K03 179 itself, and men coming out of their shops to look at it, to stand 
K03 180 with their hands under their aprons or stuck in their back pockets 
K03 181 and just look around at a street that spread itself wider to hold 
K03 182 the day.
K03 183 
K04   1 <#FROWN:K04\><p_>At last I applied for the commission of ensign 
K04   2 (deck volunteer general) and became a 'ninety-day wonder' after 
K04   3 training for that period of time aboard the U.S.S. <tf_>Prairie 
K04   4 State<tf/>, moored in the Hudson the upper west bank of 
K04   5 Manhattan.<p/>
K04   6 <p_>And then my fate took a curious turn. Instead of being sent to 
K04   7 sea, I was assigned to Vice Admiral Clarke's staff at 90 Church 
K04   8 Street, where I found myself a kind of personal secretary to the 
K04   9 old man, running errands, writing letters, accompanying him on 
K04  10 social occasions and even handling some of the delicate problems of 
K04  11 his rather difficult children. It was no fault of mine that he 
K04  12 became so dependent on me that he opposed my transfer to more 
K04  13 active duty, and Amanda, delighted to have me home, argued strongly 
K04  14 that it was a quite sufficient contribution to the war effort to 
K04  15 guard from distracting botherations the high officer who was 
K04  16 responsible for the safety of our whole eastern sea frontier. But 
K04  17 as I had always concentrated on looking the part of a man of 
K04  18 courage, it now surely behooved me not to look the part of his 
K04  19 opposite, and I suspected that few of my friends appreciated the 
K04  20 stranglehold that my chief had on my naval career and deemed me the 
K04  21 willing and complaisant captive of his personal needs. And so I 
K04  22 found myself in the position of having actually to throw away the 
K04  23 shield that a kind fate seemed to be interposing between me and my 
K04  24 old nemesis!<p/>
K04  25 <p_>The call for more officers on sea duty was now so urgent that 
K04  26 Admiral Clarke was obliged to endorse my application for assignment 
K04  27 to the amphibious fleet. I had decided that I might do better on a 
K04  28 ship such as an LST, where one had only, so to speak, to follow the 
K04  29 leader in a line of transports, than on an attacking destroyer, 
K04  30 where any moment of panic might paralyze the brain and endanger the 
K04  31 vessel. What I had not counted on was the favoritism of my admiral, 
K04  32 who followed my career from his desk in Church Street (as a naval 
K04  33 officer he could not resent my desertion) and was instrumental in 
K04  34 my being made captain of a landing ship tanks.<p/>
K04  35 <p_>Well, it started off well enough. I had nine officers and a 
K04  36 hundred men under me, and being reasonable in my expectations of 
K04  37 them and polite and friendly in my dealings, I soon found myself 
K04  38 popular. We crossed the Atlantic to take part in the invasion of 
K04  39 Normandy and had the good luck to unload our troops on one of the 
K04  40 less guarded sectors of the beaches. After returning to the Solent 
K04  41 three days later and dropping the hook exactly in our assigned 
K04  42 position, I wondered whether the murky god of my adolescence had 
K04  43 not been appeased at last.<p/>
K04  44 <p_>Alas, he was only waiting for a more opportune moment. Some 
K04  45 weeks later, ordered to London to take on Canadian troops, we 
K04  46 passed at night through the Straits of Dover within range for some 
K04  47 hours of the German shore batteries. They opened up on the convoy, 
K04  48 and despite the British jamming of their radar, they managed to hit 
K04  49 the merchant vessel directly ahead of us.<p/>
K04  50 <p_>Now I learned what hell is. My crew, of course, were at their 
K04  51 battle stations, and I at mine on the bridge with the officer of 
K04  52 the deck, the executive officer, the chief quartermaster and a 
K04  53 signalman. The night was black but lit with the flare of gunfire 
K04  54 and the blazing wreck of the merchant ship, which we now had to 
K04  55 pass and leave astern. I was suddenly absolutely convinced that we 
K04  56 were going to be struck. The shell would land directly on the 
K04  57 bridge itself. There was no doubt in my mind; it was the simplest 
K04  58 and grimmest of facts. I opened my mouth to suggest some kind of 
K04  59 evasive maneuver to the exec, whose figure I could just make out in 
K04  60 the darkness, but no sound emerged. And then I knew that the horror 
K04  61 choking me was simply unbearable. Anything, even death was 
K04  62 preferable.<p/>
K04  63 <p_>Suddenly I was walking aft. I was leaving the bridge. Leaving 
K04  64 my battle station without even transferring the 'conn' to the exec! 
K04  65 I think I meant to jump off the ship. At least I can recall leaning 
K04  66 over the side on the stern, vaguely aware of the staring white 
K04  67 faces of the gun crew of the three-inch fifty close beside me, and 
K04  68 peering into the hissing foam of our wake. Did I hope to be picked 
K04  69 up by a lifeboat of survivors from the wreck astern? Was I deterred 
K04  70 by the apprehension of being sucked into our screws and cut to 
K04  71 bits? I am not sure.<p/>
K04  72 <p_>All I know is that I remained there, a miserable shivering 
K04  73 wretch, until the firing ceased and I returned to the bridge. I 
K04  74 mumbled something about an attack of the 'trots.' Nobody said 
K04  75 anything.<p/>
K04  76 <p_>So there it was. Nemesis. The final blow had fallen at last. 
K04  77 Yet in the next days nothing happened. I was treated in the 
K04  78 wardroom with the same good manners, and I began to wonder whether 
K04  79 it was my imagination that these now veiled an unspoken scorn. I 
K04  80 knew that the episode must have been discussed by every man on that 
K04  81 vessel. But only in the eyes of the exec, a strange saturnine 
K04  82 fellow in whom I fancied I could detect a resemblance to Andy 
K04  83 Ritter, did I really believe I could make out a glimmer of 
K04  84 contempt, and I suspected him of having felt that for me all 
K04  85 along.<p/>
K04  86 <p_>At last I realized something about LSTs. The ship's company 
K04  87 does not depend on the guts and skill of the commanding officer to 
K04  88 anything like the degree it does on vessels of attack. These big 
K04  89 naval marine trucks perform their semi-automatic tasks under the 
K04  90 orders of a group or flotilla commander, who is apt to be a 
K04  91 competent and almost certainly courageous regular navy officer. The 
K04  92 skipper of the individual unit is important to his crew largely 
K04  93 because of his power to make their lives uncomfortable. If they 
K04  94 have the good fortune to have drawn a reasonably easygoing and 
K04  95 pleasant captain, how much does it matter if he has a yellow 
K04  96 streak? The vessel, anyway, is rarely under direct attack.<p/>
K04  97 <p_>So my defection was overlooked if not forgotten. I even dared 
K04  98 to draw a breath of something like relief at the idea that the 
K04  99 worst was now over. When we returned to the States, after some 
K04 100 months of uneventful Channel ferrying, for an overhaul in the 
K04 101 Brooklyn Navy Yard, I was generous in granting liberty to the crew 
K04 102 and entertained the officers on several occasions at night 
K04 103 clubs.<p/>
K04 104 <p_>I was still afraid, however, that one of the officers might 
K04 105 tell Amanda of the horrid incident. The exec had left us to take 
K04 106 command of another LST, and I did not believe that any of the 
K04 107 friendly junior officers would do so vile a thing consciously, but 
K04 108 we drank a good deal at our parties, and I could not be sure what 
K04 109 distorted joke might emerge from the lips of a young and 
K04 110 intoxicated ensign. I decided at last it would be safer to give her 
K04 111 my own version of what had happened.<p/>
K04 112 <p_>She listened closely and without interrupting. She did not seem 
K04 113 surprised. But also did she not minimize it.<p/>
K04 114 <p_><quote_>"It could have been a good deal worse,"<quote/> was her 
K04 115 first comment. <quote_>"If the ship had been hit while you were 
K04 116 away from the bridge, I suppose you might have been in some sort of 
K04 117 official trouble. Anyhow, you're due now for shore duty. And with 
K04 118 any luck the war should be over before you go back to 
K04 119 sea."<quote/><p/>
K04 120 <p_>I did not at all like her implication that the episode was apt 
K04 121 to be repeated. <quote_>"But even if I should go back to 
K04 122 sea,"<quote/> I protested, <quote_>"there's no reason to assume I'd 
K04 123 have another attack of nerves. I have a funny gut feeling that this 
K04 124 was the kind of thing that always <tf|>was going to happen to me, 
K04 125 but now it's happened, it may not come again."<quote/><p/>
K04 126 <p_><quote_>"But why risk it? You're home, my darling, and you're 
K04 127 safe, thank God. I'm sure Admiral Clarke will be tickled pink to 
K04 128 have you back in your old slot. And he won't let you go again, 
K04 129 either. Oh, Ally, don't tempt fate! You've done your bit. Let well 
K04 130 enough alone."<quote/><p/>
K04 131 <p_>But I felt trivialized. There was a distinct discomfort in her 
K04 132 minimization of a lifetime's trial. If my ancient inner enemy had 
K04 133 been merely something that could be kept at bay by a silly staff 
K04 134 job in Church Street, what did the long agony of my resistance 
K04 135 amount to?<p/>
K04 136 <p_><quote_>"I wonder whether I shan't apply for an LST command in 
K04 137 the Pacific,"<quote/> I said moodily. <quote_>"The war there may go 
K04 138 on for years."<quote/><p/>
K04 139 <p_><quote_>"You might stop to consider what you owe me and the 
K04 140 baby,"<quote/> she said in a sharper tone. But then her expression 
K04 141 suddenly changed, and she struck a deeper note. She even stretched 
K04 142 out her arms to me. <quote_>"Oh, my dearest, do you think I don't 
K04 143 <tf|>know?"<quote/><p/>
K04 144 <p_><quote_>"Know what?"<quote/> I did not rush to her arms. Every 
K04 145 part of me was throbbing with alarm.<p/>
K04 146 <p_><quote_>"Know everything, of course. How could I not, loving 
K04 147 you as I do? Don't you see, that's got to be the answer? Oh, my 
K04 148 poor suffering sweet, if you could only relax and love and let 
K04 149 yourself be loved, how easily things would work themselves out! All 
K04 150 your bad dreams would fade away, and you and I would be afraid of 
K04 151 nothing in the world."<quote/><p/>
K04 152 <p_>So there it was, Jonathan. A woman's answer to everything. Open 
K04 153 the floodgates and let the damned-up sentiment come thundering out 
K04 154 to obliterate all the ugly-bugly things in the big bad universe. 
K04 155 And she may have been right, too. That's the sorry part. She may 
K04 156 have been offering me my last clear chance. And I, like the ass I 
K04 157 was doomed to be, or had doomed myself to be, had to turn away from 
K04 158 her appeal. Perhaps I felt that otherwise I should be giving up my 
K04 159 soul or my ego or even, silly as it sounds, my manhood. When all 
K04 160 she was asking was that I give up the foolish little comedy that I 
K04 161 had been making of my life! The absurd little piece that I had been 
K04 162 desperately trying to turn into a noble tragedy! But lives that 
K04 163 won't bow to a hurricane can bend to a gust of wind. Maybe what I 
K04 164 couldn't bear was being called <quote_>"my poor suffering 
K04 165 sweet."<quote/><p/>
K04 166 <p_>Anyway, I mixed her a cocktail and we changed the subject. That 
K04 167 night we made love. The next day brought the news of the bombing of 
K04 168 Hiroshima, and we knew that I should not have to go to sea again. I 
K04 169 remember my gall in reminding myself, as a way of putting the whole 
K04 170 matter behind me, of Gibbon's statement that the courage of a 
K04 171 soldier is the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.<p/>
K04 172 <h|>3
K04 173 <p_>Alistair and I sat in silence for a minute in my office after 
K04 174 he had finished. The room was darkening in the winter twilight. I 
K04 175 switched on my desk lamp.<p/>
K04 176 <p_><quote_>"But you and Amanda had another ten years of happy 
K04 177 marriage life after that, did you not?"<quote/><p/>
K04 178 <p_><quote_>"Oh, yes."<quote/> He spoke in a tone of faint 
K04 179 weariness. <quote_>"She was never a nag. She didn't return to the 
K04 180 subject. As you know, we had another daughter."<quote/> He smiled 
K04 181 wryly. <quote_>"Born nine months after that discussion. We went on 
K04 182 as before. Ours was what you might call a temperate union. Only, of 
K04 183 course, because I made it that way. She would have been pleased 
K04 184 with something a good deal hotter. But she was always a good 
K04 185 sport."<quote/><p/>
K04 186 <p_><quote_>"Until now?"<quote/><p/>
K04 187 <p_><quote_>"Well, who could blame her for leaving me <tf|>now? 
K04 188 Hadn't she offered me a way out? Hadn't she given me fair 
K04 189 warning?"<quote/><p/>
K04 190 
K05   1 <#FROWN:K05\><p_>But the milliseconds distinguished the good from 
K05   2 the merely adequate. Time enough for a spin or a half turn, a dip - 
K05   3 and there should still be a moment left to smile before hands 
K05   4 touched and moved apart again. <quote_>"They called it 'off-timing' 
K05   5 in our parents' day,"<quote/> Clayton had explained at the 
K05   6 fraternity dance, <quote_>"because the Lindy three-step is imposed 
K05   7 on a four-four rhythm."<quote/><p/>
K05   8 <p_>Terry reached out for her again, his body buoyed by the 
K05   9 exultant wash of strings, tethered by the beat. <tf|>Transmutation. 
K05  10 He swung her into his arms, and they moved without break into a 
K05  11 slow song: saxophones and a hundred strings, blue-cool eunuchs 
K05  12 harmonizing <tf_>It feels so good<tf/>. She had forgotten how it 
K05  13 felt to be touched and found desirable, to want with a will not 
K05  14 one's own.<p/>
K05  15 <p_>A man and a woman relieved of the weight of speech watched 
K05  16 light slide from the windshield, the outside air offering no 
K05  17 resistance, the car easing forward with barely a tremor. Earlier 
K05  18 this evening, seduction had been verbal - words teased, provoked. 
K05  19 Now, immersed in the familiar world of his scent, talk was no 
K05  20 longer an issue.<p/>
K05  21 <p_>He draped an arm over her shoulder as they walked toward his 
K05  22 house, and her arm slipped around his waist. Then his tiny grunt of 
K05  23 satisfaction, the key in the lock, the dark vestibule, hands 
K05  24 slipping under her blouse, his lips. Her exposed skin chilled, the 
K05  25 unexpected heat from his palms. She gasped as he sucked her tongue 
K05  26 into him.<p/>
K05  27 <p_>Down the hallway she held his hand like a lost waif, neither of 
K05  28 them daring to speak. The bedroom door creaked, one dim lamp gave 
K05  29 light enough to see that the sheets were blue, a bachelor's detail, 
K05  30 marine-blue, a waiting ocean. When he touched her again their 
K05  31 bodies merged into one long, yearning curve, and the sea rose up to 
K05  32 meet them.<p/>
K05  33 <h|>Thirteen
K05  34 <p_>She stirred at the aroma of coffee, the comforting cluck of 
K05  35 percolation. <tf_>It smells so brown,<tf/> she thought, stretching, 
K05  36 then snapped awake as she remembered where she was, the deep blue 
K05  37 sheets and (she slowly opened her eyes) the peach-and-white-striped 
K05  38 wallpaper. She jumped out of bed, headed for the shower, then 
K05  39 decided against it. Instead, she splashed water on her face, rubbed 
K05  40 along her teeth with a finger full of Crest, and scooted into her 
K05  41 clothes. A quick pick through her Afro, and she walked into the 
K05  42 kitchen.<p/>
K05  43 <p_><quote_>"Up already? And here I was planning to spoil you: 
K05  44 breakfast in bed with all the trimmings, down to the rose."<quote/> 
K05  45 Arrayed on the tray were plate and napkin, a glass of orange juice, 
K05  46 two pats of butter on a saucer, and a rose the color of coral in a 
K05  47 crystal vase. Terry was at the sink pouring milk into a creamer, 
K05  48 freshly showered and drenched in some exotic scent, clad in one of 
K05  49 those white terry-cloth robes Virginia had seen only in the 
K05  50 movies.<p/>
K05  51 <p_><quote_>"Breakfast is served."<quote/> He held out her chair 
K05  52 and she felt warmth radiating from him as he pushed her gently up 
K05  53 to the table, then the moisture of his lips on the back of her 
K05  54 neck. <quote_>"My Lord, I've found an angel,"<quote/> he whispered, 
K05  55 and slid into the chair to her right.<p/>
K05  56 <p_>She had rarely felt less angelic, unwashed and unflossed, with 
K05  57 her rumpled blouse and her hair full of lint. If there was anyone 
K05  58 who looked beatific it was this gorgeous man calmly sprinkling 
K05  59 pepper over his scrambled eggs.<p/>
K05  60 <p_>He looked up, smiling. <quote_>"I've been thinking, princess. 
K05  61 There's got to be more schools around here that have room for a 
K05  62 Puppet Lady. You should try to get another gig as soon as this 
K05  63 one's finished."<quote/><p/>
K05  64 <p_><quote_>"I do have another 'gig,'"<quote/> she replied.<p/>
K05  65 <p_><quote_>"You do? Why didn't you tell me?"<quote/><p/>
K05  66 <p_><quote_>"You never asked."<quote/><p/>
K05  67 <p_><quote|>" Liar." <p/>
K05  68 <p_><quote_>"Okay. You asked, but I didn't know you well enough 
K05  69 yet. I <tf|>still don't know you well enough - "<quote/><p/>
K05  70 <p_><quote_>"Oh, no,"<quote/> he said, and they both laughed.<p/>
K05  71 <p_><quote_>"But I'll tell you anyway,"<quote/> she continued. 
K05  72 <quote_>"I'm doing a month at the high school in 
K05  73 Oberlin."<quote/><p/>
K05  74 <p_>He frowned slightly. <quote_>"Oberlin? Where's 
K05  75 that?"<quote/><p/>
K05  76 <p_><quote_>"Fifty miles from here, silly! Near Elyria."<quote/> 
K05  77 Then, to smooth over his ignorance: <quote_>"It's tiny place. Six 
K05  78 thousand people, two or three thousand college 
K05  79 students."<quote/><p/>
K05  80 <p_><quote_>"Oh, yeah - that radical hippy college, right? Lots of 
K05  81 rich cultural-type families from New York send their kids 
K05  82 there."<quote/><p/>
K05  83 <p_><quote_>"Not just rich kids - smart kids. And I don't know what 
K05  84 you mean by radical, unless you call being the first college to 
K05  85 admit blacks and women radical."<quote/><p/>
K05  86 <p_><quote_>"Whoa, whoa!"<quote/> He lifted his hands, waving his 
K05  87 napkin in mock surrender. <quote_>"Look, I was out of line. More 
K05  88 coffee?"<quote/><p/>
K05  89 <p_>She nodded.<p/>
K05  90 <p_><quote_>"Anyway, I shouldn't talk about things I don't know 
K05  91 firsthand. Which I'll soon remedy. But I do know I like the idea of 
K05  92 you being in the neighborhood."<quote/> He deposited another kiss, 
K05  93 this time on her forehead, and suddenly Virginia felt panic. The 
K05  94 prospect of last night repeated over and over during the next month 
K05  95 and more - to lean across a dinner table to kiss and exchange 
K05  96 stories from the past, all the little intimacies of new lovers - 
K05  97 the thought both enraptured and terrified her.<p/>
K05  98 <p_><quote_>"But I won't be in the neighborhood,"<quote/> she 
K05  99 stammered. <quote_>"Not really."<quote/><p/>
K05 100 <p_>He looked at her with amusement. Then he tried to convince her 
K05 101 to stay at his house for the day - <quote_>"a lazy Sunday"<quote/> 
K05 102 was how he put it - but Virginia needed breathing space.<p/>
K05 103 <p_><quote_>"I can't,"<quote/> she said. <quote_>"I've promised to 
K05 104 visit an aunt this afternoon whom I haven't seen since I was 
K05 105 nine."<quote/><p/>
K05 106 <p_><quote_>"You won't spend all day with her, will you? Tonight - 
K05 107 "<quote/><p/>
K05 108 <p_><quote_>"Listen, Terry, I've got class preparations. I also 
K05 109 have to plan my opening sessions for Oberlin. That starts up first 
K05 110 thing the week after next, and it's a totally different 
K05 111 bag."<quote/><p/>
K05 112 <p_><quote_>"We can plan them together."<quote/><p/>
K05 113 <p_>She smiled, and leaned over to kiss his chin. <quote_>"Oh no we 
K05 114 can't. If I stay, we'd get zero done, that's for 
K05 115 certain."<quote/><p/>
K05 116 <p_><quote_>"Well, lady, since you're calling the shots ... will 
K05 117 you call me?"<quote/> He leaned back, studying her expression. 
K05 118 <quote_>"You know"<quote/> - she saw him swallow hard - 
K05 119 <quote_>"I'm in this for the distance. I mean it."<quote/><p/>
K05 120 <p_>No. 118 Furnace. Ruts and crabgrass, acrid air, the horizon 
K05 121 smeared with the lurid sediment of pollution. Hugging herself 
K05 122 against the chill, Virginia trudged across the street, up the 
K05 123 sunken steps, onto the sagging porch. The door of the small house 
K05 124 opened, and she was swallowed in that massive bosom, spongy and 
K05 125 instantly comforting, redolent with the mingled disclosures of 
K05 126 sweet cologne, mothballs and wool warmed on the skin. Then she was 
K05 127 bustled in, her coat peeled off and in a flurry of exclamations and 
K05 128 questions - <quote_>"My, my, what a sight for sore eyes you are! 
K05 129 Tea or coffee? Water's on, sit down; I'll be with you in a 
K05 130 minute"<quote/> - she found herself alone in the room.<p/>
K05 131 <p_>She sat down on the sofa, pale gold brocade kept immaculate by 
K05 132 a plastic slipcover that clung to the backs of her thighs; she 
K05 133 scooted forward, finally settling for a ladylike perch on the edge 
K05 134 of the cushion. The coffee table, maple-veneered and from another 
K05 135 decade, carried several month's worth of <tf|>Ebony and <tf|>Jet 
K05 136 magazines; the pale green wall-to-wall carpet had probably been 
K05 137 extolled by the salesclerk as 'sea mist' or 'mint frost' but here, 
K05 138 with daylight filtering weakly through heavy yellow drapes, it 
K05 139 exuded the melancholia of hospital waiting rooms.<p/>
K05 140 <p_>She had the feeling she'd come back to something, like a 
K05 141 sleepwalker. The modest yearning this room represented, this 
K05 142 acceptance of one's vulnerability toward the exigencies of life - 
K05 143 she had denied it and now, through a stroke of good luck or bad, 
K05 144 the Arts Council had accepted her application for 
K05 145 artist-in-residence and she had reason to return, back to the 
K05 146 sulfurous skies and camphorated rooms where she first drew breath. 
K05 147 Running and getting nowhere, round and round and faster and faster 
K05 148 like Sambo until everything melted down to the antimacassars and 
K05 149 hidden peppermints and tasseled pillows, the white leather-bound 
K05 150 Bible on a doily and the table in the corner with its phalanx of 
K05 151 yellowed family photographs framed and propped up under oval mats. 
K05 152 ...<p/>
K05 153 <p_><quote_>"My, my, will you look at that. The spittin' 
K05 154 image."<quote/><p/>
K05 155 <p_>Aunt Carrie stood in the doorway to the kitchen, teacups in one 
K05 156 hand and a plate of cookies in the other. She shook her head slowly 
K05 157 as she clucked her tongue. <quote_>"Same eyes, same long neck and 
K05 158 that way of holding yourself like someone attached a string to the 
K05 159 top of your head and pulled it tight. Ernest must be proud enough 
K05 160 to bust."<quote/> She set the dishes down.<p/>
K05 161 <p_>Virginia smiled. And Grandma Evans said her eyes were like 
K05 162 Belle's.<p/>
K05 163 <p_>Aunt Carrie was wearing a navy blue straight skirt and matching 
K05 164 V-neck sweater stretched so tightly across the prow of her bosom 
K05 165 that two ghostly circles of white shone through where her brassiere 
K05 166 strained against the weave. It was an unusual outfit for a woman at 
K05 167 home; Virginia had expected a muumuu or one of those loose 
K05 168 shirtwaist dresses and a dun<?_>-<?/>colored cardigan with the 
K05 169 sleeves pushed midway to elbow and two buttons buttoned at the top 
K05 170 - instead, this attempt at sophistication. The effect was 
K05 171 startling: from the wrappings of a legal secretary rose a vaguely 
K05 172 gourd-shaped, jowled face whose pendulous lower lip revealed a 
K05 173 crescent of deep pink mucous membrane whenever she smiled - as she 
K05 174 did now, showing a row of uneven and widely spaced teeth. Her large 
K05 175 eyes drooped slightly at the corners and seemed constantly on the 
K05 176 point of tearing, giving her the appearance of a chocolate-brown 
K05 177 beagle.<p/>
K05 178 <p_>Virginia realized she had been staring; quickly, she reached 
K05 179 for the teapot. <tf_>Why, she looks just like I thought she would. 
K05 180 I remembered her all along.<tf/><p/>
K05 181 <p_><quote_>"Here, let me pour,"<quote/> she offered. <quote_>"What 
K05 182 do you take in yours, Aunt Carrie?"<quote/><p/>
K05 183 <p_><quote_>"The same as you, dear. I don't take much to tea 
K05 184 usually - never had occasion to, I guess."<quote/><p/>
K05 185 <p_><quote_>"Oh, I'm sorry! I would have drunk coffee as 
K05 186 well."<quote/><p/>
K05 187 <p_>Aunt Carrie chuckled. <quote_>"You must have learned that in 
K05 188 the university."<quote/><p/>
K05 189 <p_><quote_>"Learned what?"<quote/><p/>
K05 190 <p_><quote_>"Having tea in the middle of the day. Anyway, I ain't 
K05 191 so old I can't pick up a new habit. It's good to see you, sugar. 
K05 192 Mrs. Evans said you was here, said you was bound to 
K05 193 call."<quote/><p/>
K05 194 <p_><quote_>"Aunt Carrie, I want to apologize for not getting in 
K05 195 touch with you. I've been so busy..."<quote/><p/>
K05 196 <p_><quote_>"Don't go apologizing to me. I'm not one for apologies, 
K05 197 makes me blush. You young people got all that life ahead of you, 
K05 198 it's no wonder you're busy. We may talk a lot about you not coming 
K05 199 round to see us often as we'd like, but we know how it 
K05 200 is."<quote/><p/>
K05 201 <p_>She took a thin white handkerchief from her waistband and 
K05 202 dabbed at her eyelids. There was a pink rose embroidered in one 
K05 203 corner. <quote_>"I remember baby-sitting you and your brother, how 
K05 204 you liked to draw. You drew up every piece of paper you could get 
K05 205 your hands on. Your dad had to lock his desk."<quote/> She wrapped 
K05 206 he hanky around her right index finger, pulled it straight, then 
K05 207 started in again with the left index finger.<p/>
K05 208 <p_><quote_>"May I ask you something, Aunt Carrie? I don't know if 
K05 209 it means anything, really."<quote/><p/>
K05 210 <p_><quote_>"What, dear?"<quote/><p/>
K05 211 <p_><quote_>"Well, you mentioned the old station the other day, and 
K05 212 then I dreamed that night - I mean, I had a dream about it - not a 
K05 213 very pleasant dream, I'm afraid. But you were in it, and me, and my 
K05 214 mother. I don't know if you can help me or not. I've always 
K05 215 wondered why we had to move to Arizona in such a hurry. I don't 
K05 216 remember anyone being too happy about it."<quote/><p/>
K05 217 <p_><quote_>"Your father got a good job offer - "<quote/><p/>
K05 218 <p_><quote_>"I know. But there <tf|>has to be something 
K05 219 else."<quote/> She stared at the old woman's hands twisting the 
K05 220 handkerchief; sometimes the rose could be seen among the coiled 
K05 221 ends of the cotton, a delicate blemish. <quote_>"One day, not long 
K05 222 after Claudia was born, I overheard my parents arguing.
K05 223 
K06   1 <#FROWN:K06\><p_>Sometimes even now I think I see him in the street 
K06   2 or standing in a window or bent over a book in a coffee shop. And 
K06   3 in that instant, before I understand that it's someone else, my 
K06   4 lungs tighten and I lose my breath.<p/>
K06   5 <p_>I met him eight years ago. I was a graduate student then at 
K06   6 Columbia University. It was hot that summer and my nights were 
K06   7 often sleepless. I lay awake in my two-room apartment on West 109th 
K06   8 Street listening to the city's noises. I would read, write, and 
K06   9 smoke into the morning, but on some nights when the heat made me 
K06  10 too listless to work, I watched the neighbors from my bed. Through 
K06  11 my barred window, across the narrow airshaft, I looked into the 
K06  12 apartment opposite mine and saw the two men who lived there wander 
K06  13 from one room to another, half dressed in the sultry weather. On a 
K06  14 day in July, not long before I met Mr. Morning, one of the men came 
K06  15 naked to the window. It was dusk and he stood there for a long 
K06  16 time, his body lit from behind by a yellow lamp. I hid in the 
K06  17 darkness of my bedroom and he never knew I was there. That was two 
K06  18 months after Stephen left me, and I thought of him incessantly, 
K06  19 stirring in the humid sheets, never comfortable, never relieved.<p/>
K06  20 <p_>During the day, I looked for work. In June I had done research 
K06  21 for a medical historian. Five days a week I sat in the reading room 
K06  22 at the Academy of Medicine on East 103rd Street, filling up index 
K06  23 cards with information about great diseases - bubonic plague, 
K06  24 leprosy, influenza, syphilis, tuberculosis - as well as more 
K06  25 obscure afflictions that I remember now only because of their names 
K06  26 - yaws, milk leg, greensickness, ragsorter's disease, housemaid's 
K06  27 knee, and dandy fever. Dr. Rosenberg, an octogenarian who spoke and 
K06  28 moved very slowly, paid me six dollars an hour to fill up those 
K06  29 index cards, and although I never understood what he did with them, 
K06  30 I never asked him, fearing that an explanation might take hours. 
K06  31 The job ended when my employer went to Italy. I had always been 
K06  32 poor as a student, but Dr. Rosenberg's vacation made me desperate. 
K06  33 I hadn't paid the July rent, and I had no money for August. Every 
K06  34 day, I went to the bulletin board in Philosophy Hall where jobs 
K06  35 were posted, but by the time I called, they had always been taken. 
K06  36 Nevertheless, that was how I found Mr. Morning. A small handwritten 
K06  37 notice announced the position: <quote_>"Wanted. Research assistant 
K06  38 for project already under way. Student of literature preferred. 
K06  39 Herbert B. Morning."<quote/> A phone number appeared under the 
K06  40 name, and I called immediately. Before I could properly introduce 
K06  41 myself, a man with a beautiful voice gave me an address on 
K06  42 Amsterdam Avenue and told me to come over as soon as possible.<p/>
K06  43 <p_>It was hazy that day, but the sun glared and I blinked in the 
K06  44 light as I walked through the door of Mr. Morning's tenement 
K06  45 building. The elevator was broken, and I remember sweating while I 
K06  46 climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. I can still see his intent 
K06  47 face in the doorway. He was a very pale man with a large, handsome 
K06  48 nose. He breathed loudly as he opened the door and let me into a 
K06  49 tiny, stifling room that smelled of a cat. The walls were lined 
K06  50 with stuffed bookshelves, and more books were piled in leaning 
K06  51 towers all over the room. There were tall stacks of newspapers and 
K06  52 magazines as well, and beneath a window whose blinds had been 
K06  53 tightly shut was a heap of old clothes or rags. A massive wooden 
K06  54 desk stood in the center of the room, and on it were perhaps a 
K06  55 dozen boxes of various sizes. Close to the desk was a narrow bed, 
K06  56 its rumpled sheets strewn with more books. Mr. Morning seated 
K06  57 himself behind the desk, and I sat down in an old folding chair 
K06  58 across from him. A narrow ray of light that had escaped through a 
K06  59 broken blind fell to the floor between us, and when I looked at it, 
K06  60 I saw a haze of dust.<p/>
K06  61 <p_>I smoked, contributing to the room's blur, and looked at the 
K06  62 skin of his neck; it was moon white. He told me he was happy I had 
K06  63 come and then fell silent. Without any apparent reserve, he looked 
K06  64 at me, taking in my whole body with his gaze. I don't know if his 
K06  65 scrutiny was lecherous or merely curious, but I felt assaulted and 
K06  66 turned away from him, and then when he asked me my name, I lied. I 
K06  67 did it quickly, without hesitation, inventing a new patronym: 
K06  68 Davidsen. I became Iris Davidsen. It was a defensive act, a way of 
K06  69 protecting myself from some amorphous danger, but later that false 
K06  70 name haunted me; it seemed to move me elsewhere, shifting me off 
K06  71 course and strangely altering my whole world for a time. When I 
K06  72 think back on it now, I imagine that lie as the beginning of the 
K06  73 story, as a kind of door to my uneasiness. Everything else I told 
K06  74 him was true - about my parents and sisters in Minnesota, about my 
K06  75 studies in nineteenth-century English literature, my past research 
K06  76 jobs, even my telephone number. As I talked, he smiled at me, and I 
K06  77 thought to myself, It's<&|>sic! an intimate smile, as if he has 
K06  78 known me for years.<p/>
K06  79 <p_>He told me that he was a writer, that he wrote for magazines to 
K06  80 earn money. <quote_>"I write about everything for every 
K06  81 taste,"<quote/> he said. <quote_>"I've written for <tf_>Field and 
K06  82 Stream, House and Garden, True Confessions, True Detective, 
K06  83 Reader's Digest.<tf/> I've written stories, one spy novel, poems, 
K06  84 essays, reviews - I even did an art catalog once."<quote/> He 
K06  85 grinned and waved an arm. <quote_>" 'Stanley Rubin's rhythmical 
K06  86 canvases reveal a debt to Mannerism - Pontormo in particular. The 
K06  87 long, undulating shapes hint at ... ' "<quote/> He laughed. 
K06  88 <quote_>"And I rarely publish under the same name."<quote/><p/>
K06  89 <p_><quote_>"Don't you stand behind what you write?"<quote/><p/>
K06  90 <p_><quote_>"I am behind everything I write, Miss Davidsen, usually 
K06  91 sitting, sometimes standing. In the eighteenth century, it was 
K06  92 common to stand and write - at an escritoire. Thomas Wolfe wrote 
K06  93 standing."<quote/><p/>
K06  94 <p_><quote_>"That's not exactly what I meant."<quote/><p/>
K06  95 <p_><quote_>"No, of course it isn't. But you see, Herbert B. 
K06  96 Morning couldn't possibly write for <tf_>True Confessions<tf/>, but 
K06  97 Fern Luce can. It's as simple as that."<quote/><p/>
K06  98 <p_><quote_>"You enjoy hiding behind masks?"<quote/><p/>
K06  99 <p_><quote_>"I revel in it. It gives my life a certain color and 
K06 100 danger."<quote/><p/>
K06 101 <p_><quote_>"Isn't danger overstating it a bit?"<quote/><p/>
K06 102 <p_><quote_>"I don't think so. Nothing is beyond me as long as I 
K06 103 adopt the correct name for each project. It isn't arbitrary. It 
K06 104 requires a gift, a genius, if I may say so myself, for hitting on 
K06 105 the alias that will unleash the right man or woman for the job. 
K06 106 Dewitt L. Parker wrote that art catalog, for example, and Martin 
K06 107 Blane did the spy novel. But there are risks, too. Even the most 
K06 108 careful planning can go awry. It's impossible to know for sure 
K06 109 who's concealed under the pseudonym I choose."<quote/><p/>
K06 110 <p_><quote_>"I see,"<quote/> I said. <quote_>"In that case, I 
K06 111 should probably ask you who you are now."<quote/><p/>
K06 112 <p_><quote_>"You have the privilege, dear lady, of addressing 
K06 113 Herbert B. Morning himself, unencumbered by any other 
K06 114 personalities."<quote/><p/>
K06 115 <p_><quote_>"And what does Mr. Morning need a research assistant 
K06 116 for?"<quote/><p/>
K06 117 <p_><quote_>"For a kind of biography,"<quote/> he said. 
K06 118 <quote_>"For a project about life's paraphernalia, 
K06 119 <}_><-|>is<+|>its<}/> bits and pieces, treasures and refuse. I need 
K06 120 someone like you to respond freely to the objects in question. I 
K06 121 need an ear and an eye, a scribe and a voice, a Friday for every 
K06 122 day of the week, someone who is sharp, sensitive. You see, I'm in 
K06 123 the process of prying open the very essence of the inanimate world. 
K06 124 You might say that it's an anthropology of the present.<quote/><p/>
K06 125 <p_>I asked him to be more specific about the job.<p/>
K06 126 <p_><quote_>"It began three years ago when she died."<quote/> He 
K06 127 paused as if thinking. <quote_>"A girl - a young woman. I knew her, 
K06 128 but not very well. Anyway, after she died, I found myself in 
K06 129 possession of a number of her things, just common everyday things. 
K06 130 I had them in the apartment, this and that, out and about, objects 
K06 131 that were lost, abandoned, speechless, but not dead. That was the 
K06 132 crux of it. They weren't dead, not in the usual way we think of 
K06 133 objects as lifeless. They seemed charged with a kind of power. At 
K06 134 times I almost felt them move with it, and then after several 
K06 135 weeks, I noticed that they seemed to lose that vivacity, seemed to 
K06 136 retreat into their thingness. So I boxed them."<quote/><p/>
K06 137 <p_><quote_>"You boxed them?"<quote/> I said.<p/>
K06 138 <p_><quote_>"I boxed them to keep them untouched by the here and 
K06 139 the now. I feel sure that those things carry her imprint - the mark 
K06 140 of a warm, living body on the world. And even though I've tried to 
K06 141 keep them safe, they're turning cold. I can tell. It's been too 
K06 142 long, so my work is urgent. I have to act quickly. I'll pay you 
K06 143 sixty dollars per object."<quote/><p/>
K06 144 <p_><quote_>"Per object?"<quote/> I was sweating in the chair and 
K06 145 adjusted my position, pulling my skirt down under my legs, which 
K06 146 felt strangely cool to the touch.<p/>
K06 147 <p_><quote_>"I'll explain everything,"<quote/> he said. He took a 
K06 148 small tape recorder from a drawer in his desk and pushed it toward 
K06 149 me. <quote_>"Listen to this first. It will tell you most of what 
K06 150 you want to know. While you listen, I'll leave the room."<quote/> 
K06 151 He stood up from his chair and walked to a door. A large yellow cat 
K06 152 appeared from behind a box and followed him. <quote_>"Press 
K06 153 play,"<quote/> he commanded, and vanished.<p/>
K06 154 <p_>When I reached for the machine, I noticed two words scrawled on 
K06 155 a legal pad near it: <quote_>"woman's hand."<quote/> The words 
K06 156 seemed important, and I remember them as if they were the passwords 
K06 157 to an underground life. When I turned on the tape, a woman's voice 
K06 158 whispered, <quote_>"This belonged to the deceased. It is a white 
K06 159 sheet for a single bed ... "<quote/> What followed was a 
K06 160 painstaking description of the sheet. It included every tiny 
K06 161 discoloration and stain, the texture of the aged cotton, and even 
K06 162 the tag from which the words had disappeared in repeated washings. 
K06 163 It lasted for perhaps ten minutes; the entire speech was delivered 
K06 164 in that peculiar half-voice. The description itself was tedious and 
K06 165 yet I listened with anticipation, imagining that the words would 
K06 166 soon reveal something other than the sheet. They didn't. When the 
K06 167 tape ended, I looked over to the door behind which Mr. Morning had 
K06 168 hidden and saw that it was now ajar and half of his face was 
K06 169 pressed through the opening. He was lit from behind, and I couldn't 
K06 170 see his features clearly, but the pale hair on his head was 
K06 171 shining, and again I heard him breathe with difficulty as he walked 
K06 172 toward me. He reached out for my hand. Without thinking, I withdrew 
K06 173 it.<p/>
K06 174 <p_><quote_>"You want descriptions of that girl's things, is that 
K06 175 it?"<quote/> I could hear the tightness and formality in my voice. 
K06 176 <quote_>"I don't understand what a recorded description has to do 
K06 177 with your project as a whole or why the woman on the tape was 
K06 178 whispering."<quote/><p/>
K06 179 <p_><quote_>"The whisper is essential, because the full human voice 
K06 180 is too idiosyncratic, too marked with its own history. I'm looking 
K06 181 for anonymity so the purity of the object won't be blocked from 
K06 182 coming through, from displaying itself in its nakedness. A whisper 
K06 183 has no character."<quote/><p/>
K06 184 <p_>The project seemed odd to the point of madness, but I was drawn 
K06 185 to it. Chance had given me this small adventure and I was pleased. 
K06 186 I also felt that beneath their eccentricity, Mr. Morning's ideas 
K06 187 had a weird kind of logic. His comments about whispering, for 
K06 188 example, made sense.<p/>
K06 189 <p_><quote_>"Why don't you write out the descriptions?"<quote/> I 
K06 190 said. <quote_>"Then there will be no voice at all to interfere with 
K06 191 the anonymity you want."<quote/> I watched his face closely.<p/>
K06 192 
K07   1 <#FROWN:K07\>Naanabozho, the first born manidoo, who had become a 
K07   2 trickster spirit, was much too eager to hunt and kill what he could 
K07   3 find, even the first little birds in their nests. Like a domestic 
K07   4 animal he brought what he had killed to show to his mother. She 
K07   5 told him never to kill little birds again. Naanabozho did not 
K07   6 listen, and he did not stop killing little spirits on the earth. He 
K07   7 was a trickster child.<p/>
K07   8 <p_>Stone, the last born manidoo, seldom moved from his place on 
K07   9 the earth. The birds, flowers, and animals came with his birth. 
K07  10 Naanabozho and his other brother were together most of the time, 
K07  11 but not with their brother Stone. At night the brothers shared 
K07  12 their adventures with Stone because he could not travel.<p/>
K07  13 <p_>Naanabozho was bothered that his travels and adventures were 
K07  14 limited by his mother to the time it would take him to return to 
K07  15 his brother Stone, so he asked his other brother if he could kill 
K07  16 Stone.<p/>
K07  17 <p_>Naanabozho listened for a time, but his brother was silent. He 
K07  18 never answered the question. So, the first born manidoo child on 
K07  19 the earth decided to listen to himself and planned to kill his 
K07  20 brother Stone. This would be the first and most terrible crime on 
K07  21 the earth, the death of the first born stone.<p/>
K07  22 <p_>The trickster borrowed an axe from his grandmother and used it 
K07  23 to kill his brother Stone but the axe broke in two places. Stone 
K07  24 was hard and could not be killed with an axe. Then Naanabozho asked 
K07  25 his brother Stone how to kill him.<p/>
K07  26 <p_><quote_>"I will do whatever you tell me to do to kill 
K07  27 you."<quote/><p/>
K07  28 <p_><quote_>"Build a fire,"<quote/> said the manidoo trickster 
K07  29 Stone. <quote_>"Put me in the fire and when my body is red hot then 
K07  30 throw cold water on me and watch what will happen to 
K07  31 me."<quote/><p/>
K07  32 <p_>Naanabozho built a huge fire. He threw more wood on the fire as 
K07  33 his brother stone instructed him to do from the very heart of the 
K07  34 fire, and then the trickster waited until his brother was red hot 
K07  35 in the coals.<p/>
K07  36 <p_><quote_>"Are you hot enough, is it time now?"<quote/><p/>
K07  37 <p_><quote_>"No, not yet,"<quote/> said Stone.<p/>
K07  38 <p_><quote_>"Wait, wait, more fire, is it time now?"<quote/><p/>
K07  39 <p_><quote_>"Yes, it is the time,"<quote/> said Stone.<p/>
K07  40 <p_><quote_>"Here comes the cold water then,"<quote/> said 
K07  41 Naanabozho as he poured the water on his brother Stone. Stone was 
K07  42 red hot and cracked in several places when the cold water touched 
K07  43 him, and then he broke into thousands and thousands of pieces and 
K07  44 flew in the four directions of the earth. At first it seemed that 
K07  45 one of the first manidoo children had died on the earth, that the 
K07  46 first stone had come to a wild death in a fire.<p/>
K07  47 <p_>Naanabozho believed that he had killed Stone. The distance he 
K07  48 could travel would never be limited by his brother. He could travel 
K07  49 great distances at night and not bother to return to his brother, 
K07  50 but Stone had outwitted his brother the trickster, the one who 
K07  51 liked to kill.<p/>
K07  52 <p_>Stone had broken into several families and covered the earth in 
K07  53 the four directions. Stone families lived everywhere, in the 
K07  54 mountains, on the rivers, in the meadows, in the desert. No matter 
K07  55 where that trickster traveled he would not be far from his brother 
K07  56 and the families of the stone. One break of the stone became a bear 
K07  57 in the cities. Stone is in a medicine pouch. Stone is in the 
K07  58 mirror.<p/>
K07  59 <p_>Stone created the world of nature and the wanaki cards, and 
K07  60 taught the tribes how to meditate. He created three sets of seven 
K07  61 cards with pictures of animals, birds, insects, and the picture of 
K07  62 his brother the trickster on one card in each set.<p/>
K07  63 <p_>Naanabozho heard that his picture was on the cards so he buried 
K07  64 two of the sets. He was tired and bored so one set of the cards 
K07  65 survived. The third set of wanaki cards has been used to teach the 
K07  66 tribes to remember stories and to meditate. The players create 
K07  67 their own cards, but the seven must picture the bear, beaver, 
K07  68 squirrel, crow, flea, praying mantis, and the trickster.<p/>
K07  69 <p_>The player arises at dawn, turns one of the seven cards, 
K07  70 meditates on the picture, and imagines he has become the animal, 
K07  71 bird, or insect on the card for the day. Then stories are told 
K07  72 about the picture and the plural pronoun <tf|>we is used to be sure 
K07  73 nature is not separated from humans and the wanaki game.<p/>
K07  74 <p_>Stone created a meditation that would never leave him out. He 
K07  75 taught that on each day a card is selected the player walks on a 
K07  76 familiar trail and gathers fallen leaves, flowers, feathers, and 
K07  77 other natural things of the season. Then he meditates on these 
K07  78 things and places them in a room or on a table according to where 
K07  79 they were found on the trail.<p/>
K07  80 <p_>When animals, birds, insects, and living things are seen on the 
K07  81 trail a stone is placed to remember the place. In this way, stone 
K07  82 is always present where life would be in the wanaki game.<p/>
K07  83 <p_>The game goes on for seven days, a new picture and identity at 
K07  84 dawn. The last card in the game is the picture of the trickster. 
K07  85 The last card leaves the choice of identities to the player, an 
K07  86 imaginative picture for the last day of the game. Many players 
K07  87 become eagles, and cranes, some become beavers and other water 
K07  88 animals, and others become beautiful birds on the last card of the 
K07  89 wanaki game.<p/>
K07  90 <p_>Stone created a game that remembers him in stories. To end the 
K07  91 game his brother would have to end the world, and he would never do 
K07  92 that because he would be too bored and lonesome. Stone became a 
K07  93 bear in his own trickster meditation. The wanaki game is his war 
K07  94 with loneliness and with human separations from the natural 
K07  95 world.<p/>
K07  96 <h_><p_>BEARS<p/>
K07  97 <p_>March 1979<p/><h/>
K07  98 <p_>Turn the first card at dawn.<p/>
K07  99 <p_>Bears in the wanaki circle, bears in the east.<p/>
K07 100 <p_>The bears are with me now on this first turn of the cards. The 
K07 101 stones are broken into bears and land in the east. We are the bears 
K07 102 of chance, bears turned over on the mountain wind, turned over on 
K07 103 the cards. We are bears on that slow burn at dawn, down from the 
K07 104 wild treelines to our tribal agonies in the cities.<p/>
K07 105 <p_>We are bears in the rain this morning, the picture of the bear 
K07 106 and the bear in the mirror. We are more than a word, more than a 
K07 107 word beast, we are remembered in stories. We return to the heart in 
K07 108 stories, a return to nature in the pictures of the wanaki cards. We 
K07 109 are bears on the rise in the cities this morning. The wordies held 
K07 110 our name in isolation, even caged us on the page. We are bears not 
K07 111 cold separations in the wilderness of dead voices.<p/>
K07 112 <p_>We are together at dawn. No other bears are on the same trail 
K07 113 around the lake. The caged eagle and the crows hear our stories, 
K07 114 but the wordies would think we were strange at this hour, talking 
K07 115 out loud to the crows in plural pronouns. Not many wordies would 
K07 116 see me as the bear, and that is how bears have survived the hunters 
K07 117 and the tourists. They might wonder who is with me, but few would 
K07 118 see the real me in our stories.<p/>
K07 119 <p_>Someone hears us with the crows at the cage, a fresh wordy in 
K07 120 loose clothes, and he reeks of perfume and laundry soap. Even the 
K07 121 crows move back, out of his poison scent. How can we remember who 
K07 122 the wordies are when they smell the same, as if they came from the 
K07 123 same box of soap. Their animals are lost, and no one can hear the 
K07 124 stories in their blood.<p/>
K07 125 <p_>The laundry boy follows us to the bench near the wisteria. His 
K07 126 mouth moves with dead voices. How can he be so young and so dead? 
K07 127 How could he kill all the animals and birds in his heart? How can 
K07 128 he go on? He has no stories to remember because he asks us about 
K07 129 our stories. He must be a trickster who played so hard he killed 
K07 130 the animals in his own heart.<p/>
K07 131 <p_>Laundry must think we are separated, he must think he 
K07 132 understands our loneliness at this hour, but he is so easy to 
K07 133 distract with the obvious in the natural world. Had he taken the 
K07 134 scent of magnolia we might have heard his voice.<p/>
K07 135 <p_>We crisscrossed the street and he was sure to follow that 
K07 136 morning, so we turn to the right and circle around, but he 
K07 137 continued on our trail. The mongrels were roused by the bear and 
K07 138 shied by our shadows. The laundry boy lurched at the words and the 
K07 139 mongrels barked him down to the animals in his heart. Too bad, he 
K07 140 turned to the darkness not the treeline, and the mongrels sensed 
K07 141 that he holds back the light in his own stories. The wordies close 
K07 142 their books at the first bark and lose their way without a 
K07 143 sentence.<p/>
K07 144 <p_>Laundry believes he discovers people on the street, as if he 
K07 145 landed as some pioneer of tribal stories, but he got lost in his 
K07 146 own wilderness of words. How could he hear our stories? He never 
K07 147 had his own stories to remember.<p/>
K07 148 <p_>Laundry sees the darkness behind his eyes and waits to discover 
K07 149 the last words that might hold back his death. How does he go on 
K07 150 without stories? He comes so clean to the cage and dies over words 
K07 151 in a dream.<p/>
K07 152 <p_>We are seen as circus bears under a clear umbrella. We can jump 
K07 153 rope to the crack of a whip and ride a small motorcycle in a tight 
K07 154 circle on the sawdust. We are bears with an audience, bears in the 
K07 155 word, and we are alone at night in a chemical civilization.<p/>
K07 156 <p_>Some wordies laugh at us from their windows on the block. 
K07 157 Children reach out at a great distance in their dreams to touch our 
K07 158 nose, to hide in our maw, and pull our thick hair high around their 
K07 159 thin necks in winter.<p/>
K07 160 <p_>There, at that clean pink house with the wild shutters, a thin 
K07 161 woman leans over the fence as we pass. We were invited to touch her 
K07 162 high breasts, the breasts steam in the cold rain. She was silent 
K07 163 and never moved. Would she be worried that we were bears?<p/>
K07 164 <p_>Laundry cursed the mongrels, and we were alone under the 
K07 165 umbrella. We were alone with our pronouns and stories, and there 
K07 166 were distances even in our pictures. We might have been a mourning 
K07 167 dove, or an otter on the great river. We are bears this morning, 
K07 168 and later the cards might turn us into birds at dawn. We could be 
K07 169 cockroaches, and we are tricksters in the end. The cards protect us 
K07 170 from the dead voices of the wordies.<p/>
K07 171 <p_>Broken windows on a truck.<p/>
K07 172 <p_>Beer cans and chicken cartons at the bus stop. Cigarettes 
K07 173 buried in the concrete.<p/>
K07 174 <p_>Printed flowers on a wet scarf distract us from the trees and 
K07 175 flowers behind the building. There, spread like a sacred shield 
K07 176 over the wire near the storm sewer, the wet red flowers and leaves 
K07 177 on the scarf seem more real than the trumpet vines that decorated 
K07 178 the center of the cedar trees across the barrier.<p/>
K07 179 <p_>The cedars were moist and gentle in the rain, but the cotton 
K07 180 flowers bound a culture that made more sense in the cities. So, we 
K07 181 were circus bears with a bright silk scarf. First we smelled it, 
K07 182 our nostrils flared over the neck perfume of a hesitant blonde, a 
K07 183 teacher at the public school. She left a scent of beer and beans, 
K07 184 garlic, chalk, and she takes her place in our memories.<p/>
K07 185 <p_>We heard more than stories of trees and flowers, so we hounded 
K07 186 the material world on the block. We brushed a fence woven with 
K07 187 bamboo, pounded a rock garden, and touched an iron bird over a 
K07 188 mailbox, and we laid our paws on houses, window frames, fences, and 
K07 189 golden doors.
K07 190 
K08   1 <#FROWN:K08\>They were often in harmony, even if for different 
K08   2 reasons. You're feeling better, he asked. The Cavaliere had not 
K08   3 married a monkey. The carriage rolled on. It began to rain. London 
K08   4 expired behind them. The Cavaliere's entourage was wending its way 
K08   5 back to his passions - ruling passions. The Cavaliere went on with 
K08   6 Candide and valet to El Dorado, Catherine stared down at her own 
K08   7 book, the maid's chin dropped to her breast, the panting horses 
K08   8 tried to pull ahead of the whip, the servants in the rear coach 
K08   9 giggled and tippled, Catherine continued to labor for breath, and 
K08  10 soon London was only a road.<p/>
K08  11 <h|>2
K08  12 <p_>They had been married, and childless, for sixteen years.<p/>
K08  13 <p_>If the Cavaliere, who like so many obsessive collectors was a 
K08  14 natural bachelor, married the only child of a wealthy Pembrokeshire 
K08  15 squire to finance the political career he embarked on after ten 
K08  16 time-serving years in military regalia, it was not a good reason. 
K08  17 The House of Commons, four years representing a borough in Sussex 
K08  18 in which he never set foot, turned out to offer no more scope for 
K08  19 his distinctive talents than the army. A better reason: it had 
K08  20 brought him money to buy pictures. He also had something richer 
K08  21 than money. Yielding to the necessity of marrying - somewhat 
K08  22 against my inclination, he was to tell another impecunious younger 
K08  23 son, his nephew, many years later - he had found what he called 
K08  24 lasting comfort. On the day of their marriage Catherine locked a 
K08  25 bracelet on her wrist containing some of his hair. She loved him 
K08  26 abjectly but without self-pity. He developed the improbable but 
K08  27 just reputation for being an uxorious husband. Time evaporated, 
K08  28 money is always needed, comforts found where they were not 
K08  29 expected, and excitement dug up in barren ground.<p/>
K08  30 <p_>He can't know what we know about him. For us he is a piece of 
K08  31 the past, austerely outlined in powdered wig and long elegant coat 
K08  32 and buckled shoes, beaky profile cocked intelligently, looking, 
K08  33 observing, firm in his detachment. Does he seem cold? He is simply 
K08  34 managing, managing brilliantly. He is absorbed, entertained by what 
K08  35 he sees - he has an important, if not front-rank, diplomatic 
K08  36 posting abroad - and he keeps himself busy. His is the 
K08  37 hyperactivity of the heroic depressive. He ferried himself past one 
K08  38 vortex of melancholy after another by means of an astonishing 
K08  39 spread of enthusiasms.<p/>
K08  40 <p_>He is interested in everything. And he lives in a place that 
K08  41 for sheer volume of curiosities - historical, natural, social - 
K08  42 could hardly be surpassed. It was bigger than Rome, it was the 
K08  43 wealthiest as well as the most populous city on the Italian 
K08  44 peninsula and, after Paris, the second largest city on the European 
K08  45 continent, it was the capital of natural disaster and it has the 
K08  46 most indecorous, plebeian monarch, the best ices, the merriest 
K08  47 loafers, the most vapid torpor, and, among the younger aristocrats, 
K08  48 the largest number of future Jacobins. Its incomparable bay was 
K08  49 home to freakish fish as well as the usual bounty. It had streets 
K08  50 paved with blocks of lava, and, some miles away, the gruesomely 
K08  51 intact remains, recently rediscovered, of two dead cities. Its 
K08  52 opera house, the biggest in Italy, provided a continual ravishment 
K08  53 of castrati, another local product of international renown. Its 
K08  54 handsome, highly sexed aristocracy gathered in one another's 
K08  55 mansions at nightly card parties, misleadingly called 
K08  56 <tf|>conversazioni, which often did not break up until dawn. On the 
K08  57 streets life piled up, extruded, overflowed. Certain court 
K08  58 celebrations included the building in front of the royal palace of 
K08  59 an artificial mountain festooned with meat, game, cakes, and fruit, 
K08  60 whose dismantling by the ravenous mob, unleashed by a salvo of 
K08  61 cannon, was applauded by the overfed from balconies. During the 
K08  62 great famine of the spring of 1764, people went off to the baker's 
K08  63 with long knives inside their shirts for the killing and maiming 
K08  64 needed to get a small ration of bread.<p/>
K08  65 <p_>The Cavaliere arrived to take up his post in November of that 
K08  66 year. The expiatory processions of women with crowns of thorns and 
K08  67 crosses on their backs had passed and the pillaging mobs disbanded. 
K08  68 The grandees and foreign diplomats had retrieved the silver that 
K08  69 they had hidden in convents. The court, which had fled north 
K08  70 sixteen miles to the colossal, grimly horizontal residence at 
K08  71 Caserta. was back in the city's royal palace. The air intoxicated 
K08  72 with smells of the sea and coffee and honeysuckle and excrement, 
K08  73 animal and human, instead of corpses rotting by the hundreds on the 
K08  74 streets. The thirty thousand dead in the plague that followed the 
K08  75 famine were buried, too. In the Hospital of the Incurables, the 
K08  76 thousands dying of epidemic illness no longer starved to death 
K08  77 first, at the rate of sixty or seventy a day. Foreign supplies of 
K08  78 corn had brought back the acceptable level of destitution. The poor 
K08  79 were again cavorting with tambourines and full-throated songs, but 
K08  80 many had kept the long knives inside their shirts which they'd worn 
K08  81 to scout for bread and now murdered each other more often for the 
K08  82 ordinary, civil reasons. And the emaciated peasants who had 
K08  83 converged on the city in the spring were lingering, breeding. Once 
K08  84 again the <foreign|>cuccagna would be built, savagely dismantled, 
K08  85 devoured. The Cavaliere presented his credentials to the 
K08  86 thirteen-year-old King and the regents, rented a spacious 
K08  87 three-story mansion commanding a heart-stopping view of the bay and 
K08  88 Capri and the quiescent volcano for, in local money, one hundred 
K08  89 fifty pounds a year, and began organizing as much employment as 
K08  90 possible for his quickened energies.<p/>
K08  91 <p_>Living abroad facilitates treating life as a spectacle - it is 
K08  92 one of the reasons that people of means move abroad. Where those 
K08  93 stunned by the horror of the famine and the brutality and 
K08  94 incompetence of the government's response saw unending inertia, 
K08  95 lethargy, a hardened lava of ignorance, the Cavaliere saw a flow. 
K08  96 The expatriate's dancing city is often the local reformer's or 
K08  97 revolutionary's immobilized one, ill-governed, committed to 
K08  98 injustice. Different distance, different cities. The Cavaliere had 
K08  99 never been as active, as stimulated, as alive mentally. As 
K08 100 pleasurably detached. In the churches, in the narrow, steep 
K08 101 streets, at the court - so many performances here. Among the bay's 
K08 102 eccentric marine life, he noted with delight (no rivalry between 
K08 103 art and nature for this intrepid connoisseur) one fish with tiny 
K08 104 feet, an evolutionary overachiever who nevertheless hadn't made it 
K08 105 out of the water. The sun beat down relentlessly. He trod steaming, 
K08 106 spongy ground that was hot beneath his shoes. And bony ground 
K08 107 loaded with rifts of treasure.<p/>
K08 108 <p_>The obligations of social life of which so many dutifully 
K08 109 complain, the maintenance of a great household with some fifty 
K08 110 servants, including several musicians, keep his expenses rising. 
K08 111 His envoy's salary was hardly adequate for the lavish 
K08 112 entertainments required to impose himself on the imagination of 
K08 113 people who counted, a necessary part of his job; for the 
K08 114 expectations of the painters on whom he bestows patronage; for the 
K08 115 price of antiquities and pictures for which he must compete with a 
K08 116 host of rival collectors. Of course he is eventually going to sell 
K08 117 the best of what he buys - and he does. A gratifying symmetry, that 
K08 118 collecting most things requires money but then the things collected 
K08 119 themselves turn into more money. Though money was the faintly 
K08 120 disreputable, necessary byproduct of his passion, collecting was 
K08 121 still a virile occupation: not merely recognizing but bestowing 
K08 122 value on things, by including them in one's collection. It stemmed 
K08 123 from a lordly sense of himself that Catherine - indeed, all but a 
K08 124 very few women - could not have.<p/>
K08 125 <p_>His reputation as a connoisseur and man of learning, his 
K08 126 affability, the favor he came to enjoy at court, unmatched by any 
K08 127 other of the envoys, and made the Cavaliere the city's leading 
K08 128 foreign resident. It was to Catherine's credit that she was no 
K08 129 courtier, that she was revolted by the antics of the King, a youth 
K08 130 of stupefying coarseness, and by his snobbish, fertile, intelligent 
K08 131 wife, who wielded most of the power. As it did him credit that he 
K08 132 was able to amuse the King. There was no reason for Catherine to 
K08 133 accompany him to the food-slinging banquets at the royal palace to 
K08 134 which he was convened three or four times a week. He was never 
K08 135 bored when with her; but he was also happy to be alone, out for 
K08 136 whole days on the bay in his boat harpooning fish, when his head 
K08 137 went quiet in the sun, or gazing at, reviewing, itemizing his 
K08 138 treasures in his cool study or the storeroom, or looking through 
K08 139 the new books on ichthyology or electricity or ancient history that 
K08 140 he had ordered from London. One never could know enough, see 
K08 141 enough. Much longing there. A feeling he was spared in his 
K08 142 marriage, a wholly successful marriage - one in which all needs 
K08 143 were satisfied that had been given permission to arise. There was 
K08 144 no frustration, at least on his part, therefore no longing, no 
K08 145 desire to be together as much as possible.<p/>
K08 146 <p_>High-minded where he was cynical, ailing while he was robust, 
K08 147 tender when he forgot to be, correct as her table settings for 
K08 148 sixty - the amiable, not too plain, harpsichord-playing heiress he 
K08 149 had married seemed to him pure wife, as far as he could imagine 
K08 150 such a being. He relished the fact that everyone thought her 
K08 151 admirable. Conscientiously dependent rather than weak, she was not 
K08 152 lacking in self-confidence. Religion animated her; her dismay at 
K08 153 his impiety sometimes made her seem commanding. Besides his own 
K08 154 person and career, music was the principal interest they had in 
K08 155 common. When Leopold Mozart and his prodigy son had visited the 
K08 156 city two years ago Catherine had becomingly trembled as she sat 
K08 157 down to play for them, and then performed as superbly as ever. At 
K08 158 the weekly concerts given in the British envoy's mansion, to which 
K08 159 all of local society aspired to be invited, the very people who 
K08 160 most loudly talked and ate through every opera during the season 
K08 161 fell silent. Catherine tamed them. The Cavaliere was an 
K08 162 accomplished cellist and violinist - he had taken lessons from the 
K08 163 great Giardini in London when he was twenty - but she was the 
K08 164 better musician, he freely allowed. He liked having reasons to 
K08 165 admire her. Even more than wanting to be admired, he liked 
K08 166 admiring.<p/>
K08 167 <p_>Though his imagination was reasonably lascivious, his blood, so 
K08 168 he thought, was temperate. In that time men with his privileges 
K08 169 were usually corpulent by their third or fourth decade. But the 
K08 170 Cavaliere had not lost a jot of his young man's appetite for 
K08 171 physical exertion. He worried about Catherine's delicate, 
K08 172 unexercised constitution, to the point of sometimes being made 
K08 173 uneasy by the ardor with which she welcomed his punctual embraces. 
K08 174 There was little sexual between them. He didn't regret not taking a 
K08 175 mistress, though - whatever others might make of the oddity. 
K08 176 Occasionally, opportunity plumped itself down beside him; the heat 
K08 177 rose; and he found himself reaching from moist palm to layered 
K08 178 clothes, unhooking, untying, fingering, pushing. But the venture 
K08 179 would leave him with no desire to continue; he was drawn to other 
K08 180 kinds of acquisition, of possession. That Catherine took no more 
K08 181 than a benevolent interest in his collections was just as well, 
K08 182 perhaps. It is natural for lovers of music to enjoy collaborating, 
K08 183 playing together. Most unnatural to be a co-collector. One wants to 
K08 184 possess (and be possessed) alone.<p/>
K08 185 <p_>It is my nature to collect, he once told his wife.<p/>
K08 186 <p_><quote|>"Picture-mad," a friend from his youth called him - one 
K08 187 person's nature being another's idea of madness; of immoderate 
K08 188 desire.<p/>
K08 189 <p_>As a child he collected coins, the automata, then musical 
K08 190 instruments. Collecting expresses a free-floating desire that 
K08 191 attaches and re-attaches itself - it is a succession of desires. 
K08 192 The true collector is in the grip not of what is collected but of 
K08 193 collecting. By his early twenties the Cavaliere had already formed 
K08 194 and been forced to sell, in order to pay debts, several small 
K08 195 collections of paintings.<p/>
K08 196 <p_>Upon arriving as envoy he started collecting anew. Within an 
K08 197 hour on horseback, Pompeii and Herculaneum were being dug up, 
K08 198 stripped, picked over; but everything the ignorant diggers 
K08 199 unearthed was supposed to go straight to the storerooms in the 
K08 200 nearby royal palace at Portici.
K08 201 
K09   1 <#FROWN:K09\><p_>She kept staring at him.<p/>
K09   2 <p_><quote_>How could I have lived under the same roof and not 
K09   3 known what was transpiring in that room all these years. Forever 
K09   4 transpiring! Wait a minute, come closer, Harlan. I wont bite you, 
K09   5 you fool. Let me look at you. Kneel down.<quote/><p/>
K09   6 <p_>Harlan knelt down. She touched his dark face and straight black 
K09   7 hair.<p/>
K09   8 <p_><quote_>The face does not tell all, does it? The face is a 
K09   9 liar, and your face has lied to me. No, you do not look like one of 
K09  10 them.<quote/><p/>
K09  11 <p_><quote_>One of who,<quote/> Harlan could not control his 
K09  12 anger.<p/>
K09  13 <p_><quote_>Like the children of Sodom,<quote/> she muttered. 
K09  14 <quote_>Degenerate, abandoned by God and man. The kingdom of 
K09  15 forever damned.<quote/><p/>
K09  16 <p_><quote_>I am going to stay the night, Mrs. Vane,<quote/> 
K09  17 Harlan said, <quote_>whether you will it or not. I will stay to 
K09  18 see you are all right. You will have to allow it for your own 
K09  19 good.<quote/><p/>
K09  20 <p_><quote_>I have no good, I have nothing. The photographs have 
K09  21 sealed off everything from me, past present future, kingdom come, 
K09  22 all gone up in one cataclysm. Had there been a hundred stacked 
K09  23 corpses in there it would have been a less gruesome 
K09  24 sight.<quote/><p/>
K09  25 <p_>Her color began to return. She worked the rings on her two 
K09  26 hands frantically.<p/>
K09  27 <p_><quote_>Will you make me some strong coffee,<quote/> she said 
K09  28 in a voice more like that of a great star.<p/>
K09  29 <p_><quote_>Do you think coffee is right after your 
K09  30 medicine?<quote/> Harlan wondered.<p/>
K09  31 <p_><quote_>When I tell you what it is I want, it is what I want, 
K09  32 and it is of course right. So march!<quote/><p/>
K09  33 <p_>Harlan was gone so long that when he came back she had fallen 
K09  34 asleep in his chair. She stirred and opened her eyes. She stared at 
K09  35 the cup of hot coffee.<p/>
K09  36 <p_><quote_>Ah well, ah well,<quote/> she said and received the 
K09  37 cup. <quote_>I feel I have come back from the deepest part of the 
K09  38 infernal kingdom. I walked down to hell and here I am sitting 
K09  39 drinking coffee prepared by one of the participants in hell 
K09  40 rites.<quote/><p/>
K09  41 <p_>Olga Petrovna raised her coffee cup.<p/>
K09  42 <p_>She tasted the brew.<p/>
K09  43 <p_><quote_>Yes, its perfect. You have many talents, all hidden 
K09  44 of course from a woman who was only his spouse. How fortunate he 
K09  45 was in having solicited your assistance for so long.<quote/><p/>
K09  46 <p_>Harlan sat down in a small chair nearby. To his shame he burst 
K09  47 into tears and sobbed.<p/>
K09  48 <p_><quote_>All the tears of the seven seas will not wash away 
K09  49 what you are, were, and probably will go on being as you leave 
K09  50 these premises.<quote/><p/>
K09  51 <p_>Harlan wept on. She threw him a huge ornately embroidered linen 
K09  52 handkerchief and he dried his eyes.<p/>
K09  53 <p_>Abner Blossom was so engulfed in the writing of his new opera, 
K09  54 a kind of postlude he later called it to <tf_>The Kinkajou<tf/>, 
K09  55 that he had perhaps failed to take into account the magnitude of 
K09  56 the scandal of Cyril Vane's funeral, and the successive scandals 
K09  57 like intermittent explosions in a firecracker factory which came 
K09  58 after the disgrace of the funeral.<p/>
K09  59 <p_>The maenad of course of all of the tumult and the shouting was 
K09  60 Olga Petrovna herself. Everybody said she had gone mad, but the 
K09  61 fact was if that were so then she had always been mad, but had not 
K09  62 had the right script by which her madness could be so completely 
K09  63 expressed. Yet in a deeper sense the photographs and the 
K09  64 photographic suite itself long sealed to her inquiring eye and 
K09  65 nervous fingers had altered her faculties, disordered her senses, 
K09  66 and unleashed in her an energy, a shameless bravado, as she went 
K09  67 flinging to the winds of any restraint.<p/>
K09  68 <p_>Other aging screen stars remembered perhaps Alla Nazimovas 
K09  69 estimate of Olga Petrovna. Nazimova, the great Russian actress, 
K09  70 once said when Olga had paid her a visit in her dressing room: 
K09  71 <quote_>Always remember, my dear, that it is the firm hand on the 
K09  72 reins and not the untamed fury of the steed that wins the 
K09  73 day.<quote/><p/>
K09  74 <p_>Olga Petrovna might have remembered the great Nazimovas words 
K09  75 the day she flung all reason and restraint to the winds, but had 
K09  76 she placed herself under continuous restraint there would have been 
K09  77 no explosions of scandal and obloquy. Cyril Vane would probably 
K09  78 have sunk into even greater oblivion than he had achieved before 
K09  79 his death.<p/>
K09  80 <p_>Scandal is the breath of fame in the United States of America. 
K09  81 No one can be perfectly famous unless he has fallen into the glue 
K09  82 pot. The press lives on lies, and where truth impedes its progress, 
K09  83 truth is easily changed to headlines. The press had had lean years, 
K09  84 and the scandal arising from the death of the old 
K09  85 photographer-novelist brought the corpse of journalism briefly back 
K09  86 to life.<p/>
K09  87 <p_>Usually as Abner took his breakfast in his bed, Ezekiel seated 
K09  88 himself in a chair that almost impinged on the bed itself, for 
K09  89 Abners deafness required proximity when one spoke to him, and 
K09  90 Ezekiel relished booming out the latest newspaper instalments of 
K09  91 infamy and vilification. All was of course disseminated by the 
K09  92 servant in the interest of decency, decorum and the fitness of what 
K09  93 one can impart.<p/>
K09  94 <p_>But there was a sudden vigorous insistent ringing of the front 
K09  95 doorbell. Ezekiel and his master exchanged worried glances.<p/>
K09  96 <p_><quote_>Best to answer it,<quote/> Abner finally said, and 
K09  97 rose out of the layers of bedclothes, fastened the cord of his 
K09  98 pajama bottoms, and threw on a faded Chinese dressing gown.<p/>
K09  99 <p_>He could barely make out a long sequence of whisperings, 
K09 100 clearing of the throat, grumbling and then nervous guffaws.<p/>
K09 101 <p_>A flustered but still regal Ezekiel entered the bedroom.<p/>
K09 102 <p_><quote_>Count Alexander Ilitch, Sir.<quote/><p/>
K09 103 <p_>Abner gave Ezekiel a look of disbelief and irritation.<p/>
K09 104 <p_><quote_>What shall I tell him?<quote/><p/>
K09 105 <p_><quote_>What have you told him?<quote/> Abner almost 
K09 106 shouted.<p/>
K09 107 <p_><quote_>That you are occupied.<quote/><p/>
K09 108 <p_><quote|>Good, Abner seated himself in the little alcove next 
K09 109 to the bedroom. <quote_>"Tell him then I will see him.<quote/><p/>
K09 110 <p_>Count Alexander Ilitch had passed his best years. His face 
K09 111 which had once been superlatively handsome was now careworn and 
K09 112 flaccid. His hair on the other hand had retained much of the color 
K09 113 and luxuriance of his youth and gave him from a distance a look of 
K09 114 a man in his prime.<p/>
K09 115 <p_>Count Ilitch always carried a small cane which helped him keep 
K09 116 his balance. He had a gunshot wound in his left leg sustained 
K09 117 during a duel he had fought near the Volga River, at least 
K09 118 according to his own story.<p/>
K09 119 <p_><quote_>This is an unexpected pleasure,<quote/> Abner took 
K09 120 the Counts hand and pressed it briefly.<p/>
K09 121 <p_><quote_>I am intruding, dear Mr. Blossom,"<quote/> the Count 
K09 122 apologized.<p/>
K09 123 <p_>Abner bowed faintly.<p/>
K09 124 <p_><quote_>May we speak in private?<quote/> the visitor stared 
K09 125 at Ezekiel.<p/>
K09 126 <p_><quote_>We are in private, Count,<quote/> Abner Blossom 
K09 127 assured Ilitch.<p/>
K09 128 <p_>Count Ilitch nodded, placed his cane carefully almost lovingly 
K09 129 by the side of his chair.<p/>
K09 130 <p_>Ezekiel picked the cane up despite a motion of displeasure from 
K09 131 Count Ilitch and placed the cane just out of reach of the 
K09 132 visitor.<p/>
K09 133 <p_><quote_>I will be brief and to the point,<quote/> Count 
K09 134 Ilitch spoke now with considerable effort. It was perhaps this 
K09 135 effort which brought the blood to his countenance, and all at once 
K09 136 cleared his features of the look of age. Abner Blossoms mouth 
K09 137 opened in a kind of surprise, for Count Ilitch all at once appeared 
K09 138 as a relatively young and extremely fetching person. His great mass 
K09 139 of yellow hair suddenly came loose and fell indolently about his 
K09 140 ears.<p/>
K09 141 <p_><quote_>But before I begin,<quote/> Count Ilitch entreated, 
K09 142 all the while trying to brush back his unruly shock of hair, 
K09 143 <quote_>would it be possible for your young servant to fetch us a 
K09 144 footstool by chance?<quote/> He pointed to his injured leg.<p/>
K09 145 <p_>Ezekiel brought forth a footstool with an ornate American 
K09 146 Indian design and placed the Counts rather dainty feet accurately 
K09 147 and securely on the stool.<p/>
K09 148 <p_><quote_>Thank you, oh thank you,<quote/> the Count cried and 
K09 149 grasped Ezekiels hand tightly in gratitude.<p/>
K09 150 <p_>Abner now resembled in his mien more than ever that of a 
K09 151 presiding judge.<p/>
K09 152 <p_><quote_>Mr. Blossom, you must not write the opera,<quote/> 
K09 153 the Count all at once blurted out.<p/>
K09 154 <p_>There was no immediate response from Abner, but Ezekiel paused 
K09 155 at the door with an air of surprise, even shock at the sudden 
K09 156 utterance of Count Ilitch. Then he hurried out.<p/>
K09 157 <p_><quote_>Must not! Cannot!<quote/> the Count repeated.<p/>
K09 158 <p_>From the Counts voice now Abner recalled that his visitor had 
K09 159 once sung in a charming male alto and had given recitals to other 
K09 160 titled Russians living in exile.<p/>
K09 161 <p_>Ezekiel returned bearing a tray with two large glasses filled 
K09 162 with wine.<p/>
K09 163 <p_>Count Ilitchs powerful right hand shook as he accepted the 
K09 164 refreshment and he had finally to hold the glass with both hands as 
K09 165 he thirstily sipped the wine.<p/>
K09 166 <p_><quote_>Lovely bouquet,<quote/> the Count sipped again and 
K09 167 again appreciatively. Little drops of sweat appeared on his brow 
K09 168 and his right cheek. <quote_>But allow me to return to our 
K09 169 problem, dear Mr. Blossom. An opera based on her husbands life - I 
K09 170 refer of course to Madame Olga Petrovna. It would come at the worst 
K09 171 possible time for her - Remember, dear Mr. Blossom, may I call you 
K09 172 Abner in remembrance of your kindness to me in times past when I 
K09 173 was honored by being invited to your sumptuous banquets here at the 
K09 174 Enrique ....<quote/><p/>
K09 175 <p_>Abner Blossom raised his own glass in gracious 
K09 176 condescension.<p/>
K09 177 <p_><quote_>Thank you,<quote/> Count Ilitch whispered. 
K09 178 <quote_>Remember, then, dear Abner,<quote/> he spluttered a bit 
K09 179 and sipped more wine, and raised his nearly empty glass to Ezekiel 
K09 180 who immediately filled it to the brim. <quote_>Remember, then, my 
K09 181 gracious host, that I knew Olga Petrovna in our native land, in 
K09 182 long ages past. She was then known as Vassila. Yes, 
K09 183 Vassila,<quote/> Count Ilitchs eyes were a bit moist. <quote_>We 
K09 184 were the dearest of friends. That is why, dear Abner, I have dared 
K09 185 to come here today because I am her friend and compatriot although 
K09 186 I was much younger than Vassila of course in our Russian days. I 
K09 187 have dared to come, then, partly because of knowing her so long ago 
K09 188 and partly because I used to be your honored guest at your 
K09 189 banquets.<quote/><p/>
K09 190 <p_>Count Ilitch now sighed heavily as he used to do when as a male 
K09 191 alto he entertained his friends with singing arias from 
K09 192 Tchasikowskys lesser-known operas.<p/>
K09 193 <p_><quote_>She has sent me to you as her interlocutor!<quote/> 
K09 194 For some reason now Count Ilitch rose, but then remembering his 
K09 195 wounded calf muscle he sat abruptly down.<p/>
K09 196 <p_><quote_>Vassila, pardon me, I mean Olga Petrovna begs you on 
K09 197 bended knee,<quote/> Count Ilitch concluded his request, and 
K09 198 almost feverishly finished his second glass of wine, again filled 
K09 199 to overflowing by the attentive Ezekiel.<p/>
K09 200 <p_>Gazing over at his employer, for a moment Ezekiel thought that 
K09 201 Abner had fallen asleep for his employer had his eyes closed 
K09 202 tightly to the added discomfiture of Count Ilitch.<p/>
K09 203 <p_><quote_>"We once spent an entire long evening together on the 
K09 204 Volga,"<quote/> Count Ilitch spoke so low at that moment that Abner 
K09 205 Blossom could not possibly have heard him, and had kept in any case 
K09 206 his eyes tightly closed.<p/>
K09 207 <p_><quote_>"I greatly appreciate your taking time from your own 
K09 208 pressing affairs to come here, Count Ilitch, all on behalf of our 
K09 209 dear friend Olga Petrovna, or as you called her of yore, Vassila 
K09 210 .... But see here -"<quote/> Abner now opened both his eyes widely 
K09 211 - <quote_>"I cannot even acknowledge I have heard such a request on 
K09 212 your part or hers."<quote/><p/>
K09 213 <p_><quote|>"Cannot?" Count Ilitch asked in an amazed theatrical 
K09 214 tone, and again Abner Blossom imagined he could hear the Count's 
K09 215 male alto voice in recital.<p/>
K09 216 <p_><quote_>"Cannot, will not, never shall countenance such a 
K09 217 request, even when it comes from so prepossessing, so winsome, so 
K09 218 elegant and manly a gentleman as yourself, Count Ilitch. I have 
K09 219 always admired you. I have always wanted to be of service to you 
K09 220 now and in the future. But I cannot help you because in the first 
K09 221 place there is no such opera in progress."<quote/><p/>
K09 222 <p_><quote_>"No such opera,"<quote/> Count Ilitch asked 
K09 223 hopefully.<p/>
K09 224 <p_><quote_>"None whatsoever. Certainly, dear Count, none based on 
K09 225 the life of - you did call her Vassila I believe. No such opera 
K09 226 based on Vassila's life or that of her dead and departed spouse 
K09 227 exists!"<quote/><p/>
K09 228 
K10   1 <#FROWN:K10\><p_>Oriental fabrics being fashionable in Europe ever 
K10   2 since Napoleon's Egyptian foray, permitted glimpses in the warm 
K10   3 candlelight of her plump shoulders' ivory skin and of the powdered 
K10   4 embonpoint the d<*_>e-acute<*/>colletage of her high-waisted gown 
K10   5 of <tf_>well<?_>-<?/>set silks<tf/> revealed. He bent low, placing 
K10   6 his beaver hat, with its own fashionable iridescence, between his 
K10   7 boots, his Philadelphia boots, of a thinner black leather than his 
K10   8 Lancaster boots, their tops cut diagonally in the hussar style.<p/>
K10   9 <p_><quote_>"You disclaim, to elicit flattery,"<quote/> his new 
K10  10 companion gaily accused him. <quote_>"You have lost your mountain 
K10  11 manners, if ever you had them."<quote/><p/>
K10  12 <p_><quote_>"My dear mother is a woman of some graces, who loved 
K10  13 the old poets as well as the Bible, and my father a man of 
K10  14 sufficient means to send me to college, though he missed my strong 
K10  15 back on his farm. He began on the road to prosperity as the 
K10  16 sack<?_>-<?/>handler in a frontier trading post; in his youth in 
K10  17 County Donegal, his own father had deserted him, and when the dust 
K10  18 of our Revolution settled he quit his dependency on his dead 
K10  19 mother's brother, and sailed."<quote/> Lest this self-description 
K10  20 which he impulsively confided seem boastful, he added, <quote_>"But 
K10  21 the simple Christian virtues remain my standard of success, and 
K10  22 when my second term in the Assembly ended three years ago last 
K10  23 June, I with great pleasure surrendered all political 
K10  24 ambition."<quote/><p/>
K10  25 <p_>Mary Jenkins loyally protested, <quote_>"Yet the Judge Franklin 
K10  26 case has kept you in the public eye, and there is talk,"<quote/> 
K10  27 she explained to her sister, giving their guest the dignity of the 
K10  28 third person, <quote_>"of the Federalists putting up Mr. Buchanan 
K10  29 for the national Congress in next year's election. And just the 
K10  30 other day he and Mr. Jenkins and James Hopkins were appointed to 
K10  31 form a committee to advise our Congressman on the question of 
K10  32 slavery in Missouri."<quote/><p/>
K10  33 <p_>Buchanan hastened to disclaim, <quote_>"Lancaster is a small 
K10  34 city, Miss Hubley, and a few dogs must bark on many street 
K10  35 corners."<quote/><p/>
K10  36 <p_><quote_>"I assume you will advise to vote <tf|>against 
K10  37 extending slavery; I think it wicked, <tf|>wicked, the way those 
K10  38 planters want to spread their devilish institution over all of 
K10  39 God's terrain!"<quote/><p/>
K10  40 <p_>Such fire of opinion, the tongue and heart outracing reason, 
K10  41 attracted Buchanan, and alarmed him. <quote_>"We do so advise, Miss 
K10  42 Hubley, though in terms less fervently couched than your own. 
K10  43 Myself, since the Constitution undeniably sanctions slavery, I see 
K10  44 no recourse but accommodation with it <tf_>pro tempore<tf/>. A 
K10  45 geographical compromise, such as rumor suggests Senator Clay will 
K10  46 soon propose, to maintain the balance of power within the Senate, 
K10  47 would, I am convinced, allay the sectional competition that has 
K10  48 heavily contributed to the present panic of selling and suing. For 
K10  49 unless the spirit of compromise and mediation prevail, this young 
K10  50 nation may divide in three, New England pulling one way and the 
K10  51 South the other, and the states of middling disposition shall be 
K10  52 left as ports without a nation to supply their commerce. Disunited, 
K10  53 our fair States may become each as trivial as Bavarian 
K10  54 princedoms!"<quote/><p/>
K10  55 <p_>Grace said, theatrically addressing her sister, <quote_>"Oh, I 
K10  56 <tf|>do adore men, the sensible way they put one thing against 
K10  57 another. Myself, Mr. Buchanan, I cannot calmly <tf|>think on the 
K10  58 fate of those poor enslaved darkies, the manner in which not only 
K10  59 the men in the fields are abused but the colored ladies also - I 
K10  60 can<tf_>not<tf/>, it is a weakness of my nature, I cannot 
K10  61 contemplate such wrongs without my heart rising up and yearning to 
K10  62 smite those monstrous slavedrivers into the Hades that will be 
K10  63 their everlasting abode!"<quote/><p/>
K10  64 <p_>Buchanan tut-tutted, <quote_>"Come now, the peculiar 
K10  65 institution presents more sides than that. You speak as a soldier's 
K10  66 daughter, Miss Hubley, but here in peaceable Pennsylvania we take a 
K10  67 less absolute view. The slavedrivers, for one, are themselves 
K10  68 driven, by circumstances they did not create. Chattel slavery, 
K10  69 though I, too, deplore its abuses, is as old as warfare, and to be 
K10  70 preferred to massacre. In some societies, such as that of ancient 
K10  71 Greece, the contract between master and slave allowed the latter 
K10  72 considerable advantages, and our Southern brethren maintain that 
K10  73 without the institution's paternal guidance the negro would perish 
K10  74 of his natural sloth and inability. At present, our friends in the 
K10  75 South see their share of the national fortune dwindling; much of 
K10  76 the urgency would be removed from the territorial question, it is 
K10  77 my belief, if new territories - to the south of the South, so to 
K10  78 speak - were to be mercifully removed"<quote/> - he made a nimble 
K10  79 snatching gesture, startling both members of his little audience - 
K10  80 <quote_>"from the crumbling dominions of the moribund Spanish 
K10  81 crown. Cuba, Texas, Chihuahua, California - all begging to be 
K10  82 plucked."<quote/><p/>
K10  83 <p_>He settled back, pleasantly conscious of the breast-fluttering 
K10  84 impression his masculine aggressiveness had made. Now he directed 
K10  85 his attention, with a characteristic twist of his head, 
K10  86 specifically toward Mrs. Jenkins, who had remained standing, held 
K10  87 upright by the strands of hostessly duty. <quote_>"But I mustn't 
K10  88 tarry, delightful though tarrying be,"<quote/> he said. 
K10  89 <quote_>"Inform Mr. Jenkins, if you will, that the Columbia Bridge 
K10  90 Company matter took some hopeful turns under my prodding, and if he 
K10  91 wishes to be apprised of their nature, and of the distance I 
K10  92 estimate we have left to travel, he will find me in my chambers 
K10  93 tomorrow all day."<quote/><p/>
K10  94 <p_><quote_>"I will indeed inform him,"<quote/> the excellent wife 
K10  95 agreed. <quote_>"But please, Mr. Buchanan, you shame me by not 
K10  96 letting me offer you a beverage, and then a spot of supper. My 
K10  97 sister and I were to sit down to a simple meal - salt-pork roast, 
K10  98 fried potatoes, dried succotash, and peach-and-raisin pie. It would 
K10  99 brighten our dull fare if you could join us, and would keep you out 
K10 100 of the taverns for an evening."<quote/><p/>
K10 101 <p_><quote_>"People exaggerate my tavern attendance, even in my 
K10 102 unattached days,"<quote/> Buchanan said, in mock rebuke, and with a 
K10 103 jerk of his head rested his vision on Miss Hubley's alabaster upper 
K10 104 chest, bare of any locket or sign of affection pledged. His 
K10 105 attachment to Ann nagged at him awkwardly; he should be speeding 
K10 106 from this house and presenting at the Colemans' door live evidence 
K10 107 of his safe return from Philadelphia.<p/>
K10 108 <p_><quote_>"Oh, <tf|>do stay with us,"<quote/> Grace Hubley 
K10 109 chimed. <quote_>"It would be a kindness even after you are gone, 
K10 110 for sisters continually need something to gossip about."<quote/><p/>
K10 111 <p_>Between folded wings of peacock-shimmery Persian silk, the 
K10 112 woman's powdered skin glowed in his imperfect vision, which needed 
K10 113 for focus constant small adjustments of his head. <quote_>"I would 
K10 114 be honored to serve as helpless fodder for your sororal 
K10 115 interchange,"<quote/> he pronounced, <quote_>"but there can be no 
K10 116 question of imposing my presence for the length of a meal. I will, 
K10 117 Mrs. Jenkins,"<quote/> he announced, relaxing into conviviality, 
K10 118 <quote_>"upon your kind urging have tea to keep Miss Hubley 
K10 119 company, and a thimbleful of port to keep company with the 
K10 120 tea."<quote/><p/>
K10 121 <p_>When Mrs. Jenkins, to arrange these new provisions, left the 
K10 122 room, its glittering glow seemed to intensify; the purring blaze in 
K10 123 the fireplace - its mantel in the form of a Grecian temple carved 
K10 124 with fluted pillars and classic entablature of which the frieze was 
K10 125 decorated with acanthus garlands in bas-relief - added its flickers 
K10 126 and flares to the eddying web of candlelight. Cocking her head in 
K10 127 unconscious imitation of Buchanan's own, Miss Hubley said prettily, 
K10 128 since he had referred to his attached state, <quote_>"I have heard 
K10 129 the most wonderful things concerning Miss Coleman. She is as 
K10 130 original as she is beautiful, and her family of an unchallenged 
K10 131 prominence."<quote/><p/>
K10 132 <p_><quote_>"The Colemans are seldom challenged, it is 
K10 133 true,"<quote/> he said, permitting himself the manner if not the 
K10 134 substance of irony in such a serious connection. <quote_>"Even at 
K10 135 the age of seventy-one, the Judge keeps a good grip on his 
K10 136 interests, and his grown sons greatly extend his 
K10 137 influence."<quote/><p/>
K10 138 <p_><quote_>"Mary tells me all Lancaster thinks you are a knight 
K10 139 errant to brave the Coleman castle and carry away the languishing 
K10 140 princess."<quote/> When this apparition laughed, the shadowed space 
K10 141 between her breasts changed shape. Her voice formed cushions in the 
K10 142 air, into which Buchanan sank gratefully after days of nasal legal 
K10 143 prating in an oppressive metropolis.<p/>
K10 144 <p_><quote_>"She would not languish long, were this particular 
K10 145 knight to take a fatal lance."<quote/><p/>
K10 146 <p_>Grace Hubley thoughtfully pursed her plump, self-pleasing lips. 
K10 147 <quote_>"It makes a woman unsteady, perhaps, to have too many 
K10 148 attractions; it prevents in her mind the resigned contentment of a 
K10 149 concluded bargain."<quote/> Here she spoke, less mischievously than 
K10 150 usual, from experience, absorbed and foreshadowed: we are told 
K10 151 <tf_>Grace Hubley was a young woman of three negative romances, not 
K10 152 including the part she played in the Buchanan-Coleman episode. 
K10 153 Thrice engaged to be married, misfortune and a fickleness of 
K10 154 temperament ordained her ultimately to spinsterhood.<tf/><p/>
K10 155 <p_>Buchanan, too, may have suffered from a surfeit of 
K10 156 attractiveness. A decade later, he excited the Washington 
K10 157 journalist Anne Royall to gush, in the third volume of her 
K10 158 <tf_>Black Book<tf/> (1828-29), <tf_>No description that the most 
K10 159 talented writer could give, can convey an idea of Mr. Buchanan; he 
K10 160 is quite a young man (and a <{_><-|>batchelor<+|>bachelor<{/>, 
K10 161 ladies) with a stout handsome person; his face is large and fair, 
K10 162 his eyes, a soft blue, one of which he often shuts, and has a habit 
K10 163 of turning his head to one side.<tf/> He had been his mother's 
K10 164 first son and, with the death of his older sister, Mary, in the 
K10 165 year he was born, her eldest child. Five sisters followed, four of 
K10 166 them surviving to form playmates and an audience. His capacity for 
K10 167 basking in female approval was essentially bottomless, and Ann 
K10 168 Coleman's good opinion had to it a certain bottom, reinforced by 
K10 169 her family. Grace Hubley, in turn, we are told, possessed <tf_>a 
K10 170 beauty and vivaciousness of disposition that made her the pet 
K10 171 adorable of her acquaintance.<tf/> Her feathery banter was to his 
K10 172 vanity, we might conceive, as a deep barrel of sifted flour is to a 
K10 173 man's forearm. He stirred her, he took her tinge. The shadows the 
K10 174 Colemans cast in his head were dispersed by the light of <tf_>this 
K10 175 social conversation very adroitly guided by the keen objective mind 
K10 176 of Miss Hubley. Golden minutes fled by on winged feet.<tf/> As the 
K10 177 embrace of the November evening tightened around them, and the 
K10 178 windows of the tall sitting room with its fine provincial furniture 
K10 179 gave back only tremulous amber reflections of the lights burning 
K10 180 within, and Mary Jenkins absented herself to supervise details of 
K10 181 the impending meal, possibly the conversation between these two 
K10 182 strangers, the <tf_>pet adorable<tf/> and the favorite son, whose 
K10 183 ages flanked the turning point of thirty, deepened in intimacy and 
K10 184 dared probe the innermost source of consolation and anxiety 
K10 185 harbored by Americans of the early nineteenth century, the 
K10 186 strenuous maintenance of which so remarkably consumed and yet also 
K10 187 supplied their energy - the Christian faith. Struck by her repeated 
K10 188 righteous rejection of black slavery in all its forms, indeed 
K10 189 scandalized by her airy, quick-tongued condemnation of an 
K10 190 institution so extensively and venerably bound up in the nation's 
K10 191 laws of property and means of production, he ventured," Miss 
K10 192 Hubley, I envy you the clarity of your views. God's design, it is 
K10 193 evident, presents no riddles to your vision."<p/>
K10 194 <p_><quote_>"What riddles there are, Mr. Buchanan, I leave to the 
K10 195 Lord to solve."<quote/> By this hour her own sipping had moved from 
K10 196 tea to a brandy cordial in a tulip-shaped glass, and certain rosy 
K10 197 warmth and confident languor broadened her gestures, beneath the 
K10 198 loosening exotic length of Persian shawl.<p/>
K10 199 <p_>He inclined his <tf_>stout handsome person<tf/> forward from 
K10 200 the delicate lyre-back chair with fluted legs, so that his vision 
K10 201 won for its field slightly more of the radiant expanse of Miss 
K10 202 Hubley's bosom. <quote_>"May I ask - "<quote/> He hesitated. 
K10 203 <quote_>"I ask in all respectfulness, with full solemnity - have 
K10 204 you known, then, an inner experience of election, that supports 
K10 205 this lovely certainty of yours?"<quote/><p/>
K10 206 <p_>She adjusted her shawl, to achieve an inch more concealment, 
K10 207 then relaxed into self-exposition, saying, <quote_>"I would not 
K10 208 express it in so political a phrase - but for as long as I can 
K10 209 remember, I have sensibly felt the closeness of the Lord. He looks 
K10 210 over me - He approves of me - He rebukes me - He enjoys me."<quote/>
K10 211 
K11   1 <#FROWN:K11\><h|>31
K11   2 <p_>The night of the long knives.<p/>
K11   3 <p_>Or one long knife - the guillotine.<p/>
K11   4 <p_>If only I had known, as the heroes in mystery novels used to 
K11   5 say.<p/>
K11   6 <p_>When it was over, I was reminded of Elijah at the gangplank or 
K11   7 myself in Beverly Hills in the bookshop buying my portable Melville 
K11   8 and hearing that strange woman's prophecy of doom: <quote_>"Don't 
K11   9 go on that journey."<quote/><p/>
K11  10 <p_>And my naive response, <quote_>"He's never met anyone like me 
K11  11 before. Maybe <tf|>that will make the difference."<quote/><p/>
K11  12 <p_>Yep. Sure. The difference being it took a bit more time to 
K11  13 prepare the pig's head for the hammer, the razor at the throat, and 
K11  14 the hanging on the tender-hook.<p/>
K11  15 <p_>Lenin referred to dumbclucks like me as <quote_>"useful 
K11  16 idiots."<quote/><p/>
K11  17 <p_>Which is to say the image of Chaplin - remember? - crossing a 
K11  18 street as a lumber truck passes and drops a warning red flag off 
K11  19 the load. Chaplin picks it up and runs after the truck, to warn 
K11  20 them they've lost the flag. Instantly, a mob of <}_><-|> 
K11  21 Bolshevicks <+|>Bolsheviks<}/> rounds the corner behind him, 
K11  22 unseen, as Chaplin stands waving the flag after the truck. Enter 
K11  23 the cops. Who promptly seize Chaplin, trample the red flag, and 
K11  24 beat the hell out of him before throwing him in the hoosegow. The 
K11  25 mob, of course, escapes. So ... <p/>
K11  26 <p_>There I am, in Dublin, with a red flag, waving it at John. Or 
K11  27 there I am in the Place de la Concorde as the Bastille wagons park 
K11  28 and I offer to help folks up the guillotine steps. Only when I 
K11  29 reach the top do I realize where I am, panic, and come down in two 
K11  30 pieces.<p/>
K11  31 <p_>Such is the life of the innocent, or someone who kids himself 
K11  32 he is innocent. As someone once said to me: <quote_>"Let's not be 
K11  33 <tf|>too naive, shall we?"<quote/><p/>
K11  34 <p_>I wish I had heard and followed that advice on that night in a 
K11  35 Chinese restaurant somewhere in the fogs and rains of Dublin.<p/>
K11  36 <p_>It was one of those nights when the prophet Elijah did not 
K11  37 prevent me - nor did I prevent myself - from drinking too many 
K11  38 drinks and spilling too many beans in front of Jake Vickers and his 
K11  39 Parisian lady and three or four visitors from new York and 
K11  40 Hollywood.<p/>
K11  41 <p_>It was one of those nights when it seemed you can't do anything 
K11  42 wrong. One of those nights when everything you say is brilliant, 
K11  43 honed, sharpened to a razor edge of risibility, when every word you 
K11  44 speak sends the house on a roar, when people hold their ribs with 
K11  45 laughter, waiting for your next shot across their bows, and shoot 
K11  46 you do, and laugh they do, until you are all bathed in a warm love 
K11  47 of hilarity and are about to fall on the floor writhing with your 
K11  48 own genius, your own incredible humor raised to its highest 
K11  49 temperature.<p/>
K11  50 <p_>I sat listening to my own tongue wag, aim, and fire, damn well 
K11  51 pleased at my own comic genius. Everyone was looking at me and my 
K11  52 alcohol-oiled tongue. Even John was breaking down at my wild 
K11  53 excursions into amiable insult and caricature. I imagined I had 
K11  54 saved up tidbits on everyone at the table, and like those 
K11  55 handwriting experts we encounter on occasion in life who read more 
K11  56 in our hairlines, eyebrows, ear twitchings, nostril flarings, and 
K11  57 teeth barings than are written in our Horatio stars or inked on 
K11  58 plain pad with pencil, guessed at the obvious. If we do not give 
K11  59 ourselves away in our handwriting or clothes or the percentage of 
K11  60 alcohol on our breaths, our breathing does us in or the merest nod 
K11  61 or shake of the head as the handwriting expert sniffs our 
K11  62 mouthwash, or our genius. So lining up my friends one after 
K11  63 another, against the stockade wall, I fired fusillades of wit at 
K11  64 their habits, poses, pretensions, lovers, artistic outputs, lapses 
K11  65 in taste, failures to arrive on time, errors in observation, and on 
K11  66 and on. Most of it, I would hope, gently done with no scars to 
K11  67 bandage later. So I drilled holes in masks, poured sulphur in, and 
K11  68 lit the fuse. The explosions left darkened faces but no lost 
K11  69 digits. At one point Jake cried, <quote_>"Someone stop 
K11  70 him!"<quote/><p/>
K11  71 <p_>Christ, I wish they had. <p/>
K11  72 <p_>For my next victim was John himself.<p/>
K11  73 <p_>I paused for breath. Everyone stilled in their explosive roars, 
K11  74 watching me with bright fox eyes, urging me to get <tf|>on with it. 
K11  75 John's next. Fix <tf|>him!<p/>
K11  76 <p_>So there I was with my hero, my love, my great good fine 
K11  77 wondrous friend, and there I was reaching out suddenly and taking 
K11  78 his hands.<p/>
K11  79 <p_><quote_>"Did you know, John, that I, <tf|>too, am one of the 
K11  80 world's great hypnotists?"<quote/><p/>
K11  81 <p_><quote_>"Is that so, kid?"<quote/> John laughed. <p/>
K11  82 <p_><quote|>"Hey!" everyone cried. <p/>
K11  83 <p_><quote|>"Yep," I said. <quote_>"Hypnotist. World's greatest. 
K11  84 Someone fill my glass."<quote/><p/>
K11  85 <p_>Jake Vickers poured gin in my glass.<p/>
K11  86 <p_><quote_>"Go it!"<quote/> yelled everyone.<p/>
K11  87 <p_><quote_>"Here goes,"<quote/> I said.<p/>
K11  88 <p_>No, someone inside me whispered.<p/>
K11  89 <p_>I seized John's wrists. <quote_>"I am about to hypnotize you. 
K11  90 Don't be afraid!"<quote/><p/>
K11  91 <p_><quote_>"You don't scare me, kid,"<quote/> John said.<p/>
K11  92 <p_><quote_>"I'm going to help you with a problem."<quote/><p/>
K11  93 <p_><quote_>"What's that, kid?"<quote/><p/>
K11  94 <p_><quote_>"Your problem is - "<quote/> I searched his face, my 
K11  95 intuitive mind. <quote_>"Your problem is, ah."<quote/><p/>
K11  96 <p_>It came from me. It burst out.<p/>
K11  97 <p_><quote_>"<tf|>I am not afraid of flying to London, John. I do 
K11  98 not fear. It is <tf|>you that fears. You're afraid."<quote/><p/>
K11  99 <p_><quote_>"Of what, H.G.?"<quote/><p/>
K11 100 <p_><quote_>"You are afraid of the D<*_>u-acute<*/>n Laoghaire 
K11 101 ferry boat that travels over the Irish Sea at night in great waves 
K11 102 and dark storms. You are afraid of that, John, and so you say 
K11 103 <tf|>I am afraid of flying, when it is you afraid of seas and boats 
K11 104 and storms and long night travels. Yes, John?"<quote/><p/>
K11 105 <p_><quote_>"If you say so, kid,"<quote/> John replied, smiling 
K11 106 stonily.<p/>
K11 107 <p_><quote_>"Do you want me to help you with your problem, 
K11 108 John?"<quote/><p/>
K11 109 <p_><quote_>"Help him, help him,"<quote/> said everyone.<p/>
K11 110 <p_><quote_>"Consider yourself helped. Relax, John. Relax. Take it 
K11 111 easy. Sleep, John, are you getting sleepy?"<quote/> I murmured, I 
K11 112 whispered, I announced.<p/>
K11 113 <p_><quote_>"If you say so, kid,"<quote/> said John, his voice not 
K11 114 so amused but half amused, his eyes watchful, his wrists tense 
K11 115 under my holding.<p/>
K11 116 <p_><quote_>"Someone hit him over the head,"<quote/> exclaimed 
K11 117 Jake.<p/>
K11 118 <p_><quote_>"No, no,"<quote/> laughed John. <quote_>"Let him go. Go 
K11 119 on, kid. Put me under."<quote/><p/>
K11 120 <p_><quote_>"Are you under, John?"<quote/><p/>
K11 121 <p_><quote_>"Halfway there, son."<quote/><p/>
K11 122 <p_><quote_>"Go further, John. Repeat after me. It is not H.G. who 
K11 123 fears flying."<quote/><p/>
K11 124 <p_><quote_>"It is not H.G. who fears flying - "<quote/><p/>
K11 125 <p_><quote_>"Repeat, it is I, John, who fear the damned black night 
K11 126 sea and fog on the ferry from D<*_>u-acute<*/>n Laoghaire to 
K11 127 Folkestone!"<quote/><p/>
K11 128 <p_><quote_>"All that, kid, all that. Agreed."<quote/><p/>
K11 129 <p_><quote_>"Are you under, John?"<quote/><p/>
K11 130 <p_><quote_>"I'm sunk, kid."<quote/><p/>
K11 131 <p_><quote_>"When you wake you will remember nothing, except you 
K11 132 will no longer fear the sea and will give up flying, 
K11 133 John."<quote/><p/>
K11 134 <p_><quote_>"I will remember nothing."<quote/> John closed his 
K11 135 eyes, but I could see his eyeballs twitch behind the lids.<p/>
K11 136 <p_><quote_>"And like Ahab, you will go to sea with me, two nights 
K11 137 from now."<quote/><p/>
K11 138 <p_><quote_>"Nothing like the sea,"<quote/> muttered John.<p/>
K11 139 <p_><quote_>"At the count of ten you will waken, John, feeling 
K11 140 fine, feeling fresh. One, two ... five, six ... ten. 
K11 141 Awake!"<quote/><p/>
K11 142 <p_>John popped his pingpong eyes wide and blinked around at us. 
K11 143 <quote_>"My God,"<quote/> he cried, <quote_>"that was a good sleep. 
K11 144 Where was I? What happened?"<quote/><p/>
K11 145 <p_><quote_>"Cut it out, John!"<quote/> said Jake.<p/>
K11 146 <p_><quote_>"John, John,"<quote/> everyone roared. Someone punched 
K11 147 me happily in the arm. Someone else rumpled my hair, the hair of 
K11 148 the idiot savant.<p/>
K11 149 <p_>John ordered drinks all around.<p/>
K11 150 <p_>Slugging his back, he mused on the empty glass, and then eyed 
K11 151 me, steadily.<p/>
K11 152 <p_><quote_>"You know, kid, I been thinking - "<quote/><p/>
K11 153 <p_><quote|>"What?"<p/>
K11 154 <p_><quote|>"Mebbe - "<p/>
K11 155 <p_><quote|>"Yes?"<p/>
K11 156 <p_><quote_>"Mebbe I <tf|>should go on that damned ferryboat with 
K11 157 you, ah, two nights from now ... ?"<quote/><p/>
K11 158 <p_><quote_>"John, John!"<quote/> everyone roared.<p/>
K11 159 <p_><quote_>"Cut it out,"<quote/> shouted Jake, falling back, 
K11 160 splitting his face with laughs.<p/>
K11 161 <p_>Cut it out.<p/>
K11 162 <p_>My heart, too, while you're at it.<p/>
K11 163 <p_>How the rest of the evening went or how it ended, I cannot 
K11 164 recall. I seem to remember more drinks, and a sense of overwhelming 
K11 165 power that came with everyone, I imagined, loving my outrageous 
K11 166 jokes, my skill with words, my alacrity with responses. I was a 
K11 167 ballet dancer, comically on balance on the high-wire. I could not 
K11 168 fall off. I was a perfection and a delight. I was a Martian love, 
K11 169 all beauteous bright.<p/>
K11 170 <p_>As usual, John had no cash on him. <p/>
K11 171 <p_>Jake Vickers paid the bill for the eight of us. On the way out, 
K11 172 in the fog-filled rainy street, Jake cocked his head to one side, 
K11 173 closed one eye, and fixed me with the other, snorting with 
K11 174 mirth.<p/>
K11 175 <p_><quote|>"You," he said, <quote_>"are a <tf|>maniac!"<quote/><p/>
K11 176 <p_>That sound you hear is the long whistling slide of the 
K11 177 guillotine blade rushing down through the night ... <p/>
K11 178 <p_>Toward the nape of my neck.<p/>
K11 179 <p_>The next day I wandered around without a head, but no one said. 
K11 180 Until five that afternoon. When John unexpectedly came to my room 
K11 181 at the Royal Hibernian Hotel.<p/>
K11 182 <p_>I don't recall John's sitting down after he came in. He was 
K11 183 dressed in a cap and light overcoat, and he paced around the room 
K11 184 as we discussed some minor point to be revised before I sailed off 
K11 185 for England, two days later.<p/>
K11 186 <p_>In the middle of our Ahab/Whale discussion John paused and, 
K11 187 almost as an afterthought, said, <quote_>"Oh, yeah. You'll have to 
K11 188 change your plans."<quote/><p/>
K11 189 <p_><quote_>"What plans, John?"<quote/><p/>
K11 190 <p_><quote_>"Oh, all that bullshit about your coming to England on 
K11 191 the ferryboat. I need you quicker. Cancel your boat ticket and fly 
K11 192 with me to London on Thursday night. It'll only take an hour. 
K11 193 You'll love it."<quote/><p/>
K11 194 <p_><quote_>"I can't do that,"<quote/> I said.<p/>
K11 195 <p_><quote_>"Now, don't be difficult - "<quote/><p/>
K11 196 <p_><quote_>"You don't understand, John. I'm scared to death of 
K11 197 airplanes."<quote/><p/>
K11 198 <p_><quote_>"You've told me that, kid, and it's time you got over 
K11 199 it."<quote/><p/>
K11 200 <p_><quote_>"Maybe sometime in the future, but, please forgive me, 
K11 201 John, I can't fly with you."<quote/><p/>
K11 202 <p_><quote_>"Sounds like you're yellow, kid."<quote/><p/>
K11 203 <p_><quote_>"Yes! I <tf|>admit it. You've <tf|>always known that. 
K11 204 It's nothing new. I am the damnedest shade of yellow you ever 
K11 205 saw."<quote/><p/>
K11 206 <p_><quote_>"Then get over it. Fly! You'll save a whole day at 
K11 207 sea."<quote/><p/>
K11 208 <p_><quote|>"God," I moaned, falling back in my chair. <quote_>"I 
K11 209 don't <tf|>mind being at sea all night The ferry leaves around ten 
K11 210 p.m. It doesn't get across to the English port until three of four 
K11 211 a.m., an ungodly hour. I won't sleep. I might even be seasick. Then 
K11 212 I take the train to London, it gets in Victoria at seven thirty in 
K11 213 the morning. By eight fifteen I'll be in my hotel. By eight 
K11 214 forty-five I'll have had a quick breakfast and a shave. By nine 
K11 215 thirty I'll be at your hotel ready to work. No time lost. I'd be 
K11 216 busy on the white whale as soon as you - "<quote/><p/>
K11 217 <p_><quote_>"Well, screw that, son. You're coming on the airplane 
K11 218 with me."<quote/><p/>
K11 219 <p_><quote_>"No, no."<quote/><p/>
K11 220 <p_><quote_>"Yes, you are, you cowardly bastard. And if you don't - 
K11 221 "<quote/><p/>
K11 222 <p_><quote_>"What, what?"<quote/><p/>
K11 223 <p_><quote_>"You'll have to stay in Dublin!"<quote/><p/>
K11 224 <p_><quote|>"What?" I yelled.<p/>
K11 225 <p_><quote_>"You won't get your vacation. No final weeks in 
K11 226 London."<quote/><p/>
K11 227 <p_><quote_>"After seven <tf|>months?!"<quote/><p/>
K11 228 <p_><quote_>"<tf_>That's right! No vacation."<quote/><p/>
K11 229 <p_><quote_>"You can't <tf|>do that!"<quote/><p/>
K11 230 <p_><quote_>"Yes, I can. And not only that, Lorry, our secretary, 
K11 231 she won't get <tf|>her vacation. She'll be trapped here with 
K11 232 you."<quote/><p/>
K11 233 <p_><quote_>"You can't do that to Lorry. She's worked twenty-four 
K11 234 hours a day, seven days a week for six months!"<quote/><p/>
K11 235 <p_><quote_>"Her vacation's canceled unless you fly with 
K11 236 me."<quote/><p/>
K11 237 <p_><quote_>"Oh, no, John! John, no!"<quote/><p/>
K11 238 <p_><quote_>"Unless you change color, kid. No more 
K11 239 yellow."<quote/><p/>
K11 240 <p_>I was on my feet. <p/>
K11 241 <p_><quote_>"You'd really do <tf|>that to her? Because of 
K11 242 <tf|>me?"<quote/><p/>
K11 243 <p_><quote_>"That's the way it is."<quote/><p/>
K11 244 <p_><quote_>"Well, the answer is no."<quote/><p/>
K11 245 <p_><quote|>"What?"<p/>
K11 246 <p_><quote_>"You heard me. Lorry goes to London. I go to London. 
K11 247 And we go any damn way I please, as long as I don't interfere with 
K11 248 our writing, my finishing, the script. I'll travel all night, and 
K11 249 be on time at your room at Claridge's Friday morning. You can't 
K11 250 fight that, argue that, I'll be there. I'm going on the ferry. You 
K11 251 can't force me into flying on any goddamn plane."<quote/><p/>
K11 252 <p_><quote|>"What?"<p/>
K11 253 <p_><quote_>"That's it, John."<quote/><p/>
K11 254 <p_><quote_>"Your final word?"<quote/><p/>
K11 255 
K12   1 <#FROWN:K12\><h|>4
K12   2 <p_>I didn't see him again for close to two years. Maria was the 
K12   3 only person who knew where he was, and Sachs had made her promise 
K12   4 not to tell. Most people would have broken that promise, I think, 
K12   5 but Maria had given her word, and no matter how dangerous it was 
K12   6 for her to keep it, she refused to open her mouth. I must have run 
K12   7 into her half a dozen times in those two years, but even when we 
K12   8 talked about Sachs, she never let on that she knew more about his 
K12   9 disappearance than I did. Last summer, when I finally learned how 
K12  10 much she had been holding back from me, I got so angry that I 
K12  11 wanted to kill her. But that was my problem, not Maria's, and I had 
K12  12 no right to vent my frustration on her. A promise is a promise, 
K12  13 after all, and even though her silence wound up causing a lot of 
K12  14 damage, I don't think she was wrong to do what she did. If anyone 
K12  15 should have spoken up, it was Sachs. He was the one responsible for 
K12  16 what happened, and it was his secret that Maria was protecting. But 
K12  17 Sachs said nothing. For two whole years, he kept himself hidden and 
K12  18 never said a word.<p/>
K12  19 <p_>We knew that he was alive, but as the months passed and no 
K12  20 message came from him, not even that was certain anymore. Only bits 
K12  21 and pieces remained, a few ghostlike facts. We knew that he had 
K12  22 left Vermont, that he had not driven his own car, and that for one 
K12  23 horrible minute Fanny had seen him in Brooklyn. Beyond that, 
K12  24 everything was conjecture. Since he hadn't called to announce he 
K12  25 was coming, we assumed that he had something urgent to tell her, 
K12  26 but whatever that thing was, they never got around to talking about 
K12  27 it. He just showed up one night out of the blue (<quote_>"all 
K12  28 distraught and crazy in the eyes,"<quote/> as Fanny put it) and 
K12  29 burst into the bedroom of their apartment. That led to the awful 
K12  30 scene I mentioned earlier. If the room had been dark, it might have 
K12  31 been less embarrassing for all of them, but several lights happened 
K12  32 to be on, Fanny and Charles were naked on top of the covers, and 
K12  33 Ben saw everything. It was clearly the last thing he expected to 
K12  34 find. Before Fanny could say a word to him, he had already backed 
K12  35 out of the room, stammering that he was sorry, that he hadn't 
K12  36 known, that he hadn't meant to disturb her. She scrambled out of 
K12  37 bed, but by the time she reached the front hall, the apartment door 
K12  38 had banged shut and Sachs was racing down the stairs. She couldn't 
K12  39 go outside with nothing on, so she rushed into the living room, 
K12  40 opened the window, and called down to him in the street. Sachs 
K12  41 stopped for a moment and waved up at her. <quote_>"My blessings on 
K12  42 you both!"<quote/> he shouted. Then he blew her a kiss, turned in 
K12  43 the other direction, and ran off into the night.<p/>
K12  44 <p_>Fanny telephoned us immediately after that. She figured he 
K12  45 might be on his way to our place next, but her hunch proved wrong. 
K12  46 Iris and I sat up half the night waiting for him, but Sachs never 
K12  47 appeared. From then on, there were no more signs of his 
K12  48 whereabouts. Fanny called the house in Vermont repeatedly, but no 
K12  49 one ever answered. That was our last hope, and as the days went by, 
K12  50 it seemed less and less likely that Sachs would return there. Panic 
K12  51 set in; a contagion of morbid thoughts spread among us. Not knowing 
K12  52 what else to do, Fanny rented a car that first weekend and drove up 
K12  53 to the house herself. As she reported to me on the phone after she 
K12  54 arrived, the evidence was puzzling. The front door had been left 
K12  55 unlocked, the car was sitting in its usual place in the yard, and 
K12  56 Ben's work was laid out on the desk in the studio: finished 
K12  57 manuscript pages stacked in one pile, pens scattered beside it, a 
K12  58 half-written page still in the typewriter. In other words, it 
K12  59 looked as though he were about to come back any minute. If he had 
K12  60 been planning to leave for any length of time, she said, the house 
K12  61 would have been closed. The pipes would have been drained, the 
K12  62 electricity would have been turned off, the refrigerator would have 
K12  63 been emptied. <quote_>"And he would have taken his 
K12  64 manuscript,"<quote/> I added. <quote_>"Even if he had forgotten 
K12  65 everything else, there's no way he would have left without 
K12  66 that."<quote/><p/>
K12  67 <p_>The situation refused to add up. No matter how thoroughly we 
K12  68 analyzed it, we were always left with the same conundrum. On the 
K12  69 one hand, Sachs's departure had been unexpected. On the other hand, 
K12  70 he had left of his own free will. If not for that fleeting 
K12  71 encounter with Fanny in New York, we might have suspected foul 
K12  72 play, but Sachs had made it down to the city unharmed. A bit 
K12  73 frazzled, perhaps, but essentially unharmed. And yet, if nothing 
K12  74 had happened to him, why hadn't he returned to Vermont? Why had he 
K12  75 left behind his car, his clothes, his work? Iris and I talked it 
K12  76 out with Fanny again and again, going over one possibility after 
K12  77 another, but we never reached a satisfactory conclusion. There were 
K12  78 too many blanks, too many variables, too many things we didn't 
K12  79 know. After a month of beating it into the ground, I suggested that 
K12  80 Fanny go to the police and report Ben as missing. She resisted the 
K12  81 idea, however. She had no claims on him anymore, she said, which 
K12  82 meant that she had no right to interfere. After what had happened 
K12  83 in the apartment, he was free to do what he liked, and it wasn't up 
K12  84 to her to drag him back. Charles (whom we had met by then and who 
K12  85 turned out to be quite well off) was willing to hire a private 
K12  86 detective at his own expense. <quote_>"Just so we know that Ben's 
K12  87 all right,"<quote/> he said. <quote_>"It's not a question of 
K12  88 dragging him back, it's a question of knowing that he disappeared 
K12  89 because he wanted to disappear."<quote/> Iris and I both thought 
K12  90 that Charles's plan was sensible, but Fanny wouldn't allow him to 
K12  91 go ahead with it. <quote_>"He gave us his blessings,"<quote/> she 
K12  92 said. <quote_>"That was the same thing as saying good-bye. I lived 
K12  93 with him for twenty years, and I know how he thinks. He doesn't 
K12  94 want us to look for him. I've already betrayed him once, and I'm 
K12  95 not about to do it again. We have to leave him alone. He'll come 
K12  96 back when he's ready to come back, and until then we have to wait. 
K12  97 Believe me, it's the only thing to be done. We just have to sit 
K12  98 tight and learn to live with it."<quote/><p/>
K12  99 <p_>Months passed. Then it was a year, and then it was two years, 
K12 100 and the enigma remained unsolved. By the time Sachs showed up in 
K12 101 Vermont last August, I was long past thinking we would ever find an 
K12 102 answer. Iris and Charles both believed that he was dead, but my 
K12 103 hopelessness didn't stem from anything as specific as that. I never 
K12 104 had a strong feeling about whether Sachs was alive or dead - no 
K12 105 sudden intuitions, no bursts of extrasensory knowledge, no mystical 
K12 106 experiences - but I was more or less convinced that I would never 
K12 107 see him again. I say 'more or less' because I wasn't sure of 
K12 108 anything. In the first months after he disappeared, I went through 
K12 109 a number of violent and contradictory responses, but these emotions 
K12 110 gradually burned themselves out, and in the end terms such as 
K12 111 <tf|>sadness or <tf|>anger or <tf|>grief no longer seemed to apply. 
K12 112 I had lost contact with him, and his absence felt less and less 
K12 113 like a personal matter. Every time I tried to think about him, my 
K12 114 imagination failed me. It was as if Sachs had become a hole in the 
K12 115 universe. He was no longer just my missing friend, he was a symptom 
K12 116 of my ignorance about all things, an emblem of the unknowable 
K12 117 itself. This probably sounds vague, but I can't do any better than 
K12 118 that. Iris told me that I was turning into a Buddhist, and I 
K12 119 suppose that describes my position as accurately as anything else. 
K12 120 Fanny was a Christian, Iris said, because she never abandoned her 
K12 121 faith in Sachs's eventual return; she and Charles were atheists; 
K12 122 and I was a Zen acolyte, a believer in the power of nothing. In all 
K12 123 the years she had known me, she said, it was the first time I 
K12 124 hadn't expressed an opinion.<p/>
K12 125 <p_>Life changed, life went on. We learned, as Fanny had begged us, 
K12 126 to live with it. She and Charles were together now, and in spite of 
K12 127 ourselves, Iris and I were forced to admit that he was a decent 
K12 128 fellow. Mid to late forties, an architect, formerly married, the 
K12 129 father of two boys, intelligent, desperately in love with Fanny, 
K12 130 beyond reproach. Little by little, we managed to form a friendship 
K12 131 with him, and a new reality took hold for all of us. Last spring, 
K12 132 when Fanny mentioned that she wasn't planning to go to Vermont for 
K12 133 the summer (she just couldn't, she said, and probably never would 
K12 134 again), it suddenly occurred to her that perhaps Iris and I would 
K12 135 like to use the house. She wanted to give it to us for nothing, but 
K12 136 we insisted on paying some kind of rent, and so we worked out an 
K12 137 arrangement that would at least cover her costs - a prorated share 
K12 138 of the taxes, the maintenance, and so on. That was how I happened 
K12 139 to be present when Sachs turned up last summer. He arrived without 
K12 140 warning, chugging into the yard one night in a battered blue Chevy, 
K12 141 spent the next couple of days here, and then vanished again. In 
K12 142 between, he talked his head off. He talked so much, it almost 
K12 143 scared me. But that was when I heard his story, and given how 
K12 144 determined he was to tell it, I don't think he left anything 
K12 145 out.<p/>
K12 146 <p_>He went on working, he said. After Iris and I left with Sonia, 
K12 147 he went on working for another three or four weeks. Our 
K12 148 conversations about <tf|>Leviathan had apparently been helpful, and 
K12 149 he threw himself back into the manuscript that same morning, 
K12 150 determined not to leave Vermont until he had finished a draft of 
K12 151 the whole book. Everything seemed to go well. He made progress 
K12 152 every day, and he felt happy with his monk's life, as happy as he 
K12 153 had been in years. Then, early one evening in the middle of 
K12 154 September, he decided to go out for a walk. The weather had turned 
K12 155 by then, and the air was crisp, infused with the smells of fall. He 
K12 156 put on his woolen hunting jacket and tramped up the hill beyond the 
K12 157 house, heading north. He figured there was an hour of daylight 
K12 158 left, which meant that he could walk for half an hour before he had 
K12 159 to turn around and start back. Ordinarily, he would have spent that 
K12 160 hour shooting baskets, but the change of seasons was in full swing 
K12 161 now, and he wanted to have a look at what was happening in the 
K12 162 woods: to see the red and yellow leaves, to watch the slant of the 
K12 163 setting sun among the birches and maples, to wander in the glow of 
K12 164 the pendant colors. So he set off on his little jaunt, with no more 
K12 165 on his mind than what he was going to cook for dinner when he got 
K12 166 home.<p/>
K12 167 <p_>Once he entered the woods, however, he became distracted. 
K12 168 Instead of looking at the leaves and migrating birds, he started 
K12 169 thinking about his book. Passages he had written earlier that day 
K12 170 came rushing back to him, and before he was conscious of what he 
K12 171 was doing, he was already composing new sentences in his head, 
K12 172 mapping out the work he wanted to do the next morning.
K12 173 
K13   1 <#FROWN:K13\><h_><p_>HAPPY HOUR<p/><h/>
K13   2 <p_>Bernadine was glad to get out of the house. Gloria prayed she 
K13   3 wouldn't be bored to death. Savannah was hoping she'd meet somebody 
K13   4 worth giving her phone number to, and Robin kept her fingers 
K13   5 crossed that she wouldn't run into anybody she'd slept with.<p/>
K13   6 <p_>They agreed to meet at Pendleton's around six-thirty. Robin 
K13   7 offered to pick up Savannah when she found out her meeting would be 
K13   8 over much earlier than expected. This gave her enough time to zip 
K13   9 by Oasis to get a nail repaired and stop at home to change into 
K13  10 something flashier.<p/>
K13  11 <p_>More than anything, Robin wanted an excuse to see Savannah's 
K13  12 apartment. Bernadine had bragged about Savannah's artworks and said 
K13  13 she had very good taste. Robin wanted to see for herself. She knew 
K13  14 her apartment didn't exactly look like it came out of 
K13  15 <tf_>Architectural Digest<tf/>, but it <tf|>was colorful. When 
K13  16 Robin rang her bell, Savannah came to the door wearing a 
K13  17 form-fitting orange dress with a wide white belt and orange 
K13  18 sling-back sandals. Her hair was cut close on the sides, and 
K13  19 skewered-looking curls stuck straight up on the top. It was 
K13  20 different from anything Robin had ever seen on anybody down at 
K13  21 Oasis. <quote|>"Hi," Robin said. <quote_>"I'm Robin."<quote/><p/>
K13  22 <p_><quote_>"No shit,"<quote/> Savannah said, and gave her a hug. 
K13  23 <quote_>"Come on in,"<quote/> she said. <quote_>"Have a seat. I'll 
K13  24 be ready in ten seconds. As you can see,"<quote/> she said, walking 
K13  25 down a hallway, <quote_>"I haven't had a chance to unpack 
K13  26 everything yet, so forgive the place."<quote/><p/>
K13  27 <p_><quote_>"It looks to me like you've done a lot in two 
K13  28 days,"<quote/> Robin yelled, and sat down on the couch. She ran her 
K13  29 hands over the forest-green cushion. This wasn't cheap leather by 
K13  30 any means, she thought. There were six mint-green and peach throw 
K13  31 pillows strewn along the back. Stacks of boxes were pushed in 
K13  32 corners, but there were sculptures sitting on at least four 
K13  33 different pedestals, silk flowers on tables, ceramic vases such as 
K13  34 Robin had never seen before: copper-colored; metallic green; 
K13  35 blackish-silver; each a different shape, and some with blotches of 
K13  36 color that made them look like a map of the world. The movers had 
K13  37 obviously broken a few, because some were badly cracked, but Robin 
K13  38 didn't want to say anything. Savannah already had pictures up on 
K13  39 three walls. Robin didn't particularly care for this kind of art, 
K13  40 because half of them didn't look like they were finished. The few 
K13  41 she <tf|>was able to make out - what they were supposed to be - 
K13  42 didn't match anything in here.<p/>
K13  43 <p_><quote_>"I'm ready,"<quote/> Savannah said, and came out of the 
K13  44 bathroom.<p/>
K13  45 <p_><quote_>"Your place is gorgeous,"<quote/> Robin said, standing 
K13  46 up. <quote_>"Is this a one or two bedroom?"<quote/><p/>
K13  47 <p_><quote_>"One. It's not much to see, but come on back if you 
K13  48 want to."<quote/><p/>
K13  49 <p_><quote_>"I'm nosey,"<quote/> Robin said, and followed Savannah 
K13  50 down the hall.<p/>
K13  51 <p_><quote_>"This is me,"<quote/> Savannah said, waving her hand 
K13  52 like the women on game shows who show contestants what they can 
K13  53 win.<p/>
K13  54 <p_>A queen-sized platform bed with four oversized stuffed pillows 
K13  55 sat in the middle of the room. Behind it was a picture of a nude 
K13  56 man and woman. Next to the fireplace was an ice-cream parlor table 
K13  57 with a black and rose floral tablecloth; oak chairs with 
K13  58 wrought-iron backs, and more unpacked crates and boxes stacked in a 
K13  59 corner. One whole wall looked like the millinery section of a 
K13  60 department store. At least twenty hats hung on hooks.<p/>
K13  61 <p_><quote_>"So I guess you're into hats,"<quote/> Robin said.<p/>
K13  62 <p_><quote_>"I am,"<quote/> Savannah said, and headed toward the 
K13  63 living room.<p/>
K13  64 <p_><quote_>"Well, you should've called. I would've been glad to 
K13  65 help you unpack."<quote/><p/>
K13  66 <p_><quote_>"Girl, this stuff was in storage, and everything was 
K13  67 all mixed up. I'm having a hard enough time finding things myself, 
K13  68 but thanks."<quote/><p/>
K13  69 <p_><quote_>"Some people just have the knack of knowing how to put 
K13  70 things together, and some don't. I think you missed your calling. 
K13  71 You should've gone into interior decorating."<quote/><p/>
K13  72 <p_><quote_>"Bernadine said your place was pretty nice too. So 
K13  73 stop. I wish I could've brought my plants."<quote/><p/>
K13  74 <p_><quote_>"Why couldn't you?"<quote/><p/>
K13  75 <p_><quote_>"They wouldn't let me bring them across the state 
K13  76 border. They worry about bugs. It broke my heart. But it's okay. 
K13  77 I've got to get some. I can't stand being in here without live 
K13  78 plants."<quote/><p/>
K13  79 <p_><quote_>"Well, I've got about three, and they're on their last 
K13  80 legs."<quote/> Robin started rubbing her eyes, because they were 
K13  81 itching all of a sudden, and the next thing she knew she was 
K13  82 sneezing.<p/>
K13  83 <p_><quote_>"You're allergic to cats, right?"<quote/> Savannah 
K13  84 asked.<p/>
K13  85 <p_><quote_>"Yes. Lord,"<quote/> she said. <quote_>"Where is the 
K13  86 little sucker?"<quote/><p/>
K13  87 <p_><quote_>"In the back,"<quote/> she said. <quote_>"I'm 
K13  88 ready."<quote/><p/>
K13  89 <p_>As Savannah reached for her purse and keys, she looked at 
K13  90 Robin, particularly her cleavage, which was extremely prominent in 
K13  91 that white top. <quote_>"You're looking pretty snazzy yourself. If 
K13  92 I had legs as long as yours, I'd probably wear miniskirts too. How 
K13  93 tall <tf|>are you?"<quote/><p/>
K13  94 <p_><quote_>"Almost five nine,"<quote/> Robin said, taking a 
K13  95 handkerchief from her purse and wiping her eyes. <quote_>"I wish I 
K13  96 had some of your ass,"<quote/> she said, and sneezed again.<p/>
K13  97 <p_><quote_>"Well, in that case, I'd like to borrow about sixteen 
K13  98 ounces of your boobs."<quote/><p/>
K13  99 <p_><quote_>"Then buy you some. How do you think I got 
K13 100 these?"<quote/><p/>
K13 101 <p_>They both laughed, and Robin sneezed again.<p/>
K13 102 <p_><quote_>"Well, I know one thing. I won't have to worry about 
K13 103 you wearing out your welcome."<quote/><p/>
K13 104 <p_><quote_>"You got that right,"<quote/> Robin said. <quote_>"Now 
K13 105 get me the hell outta here."<quote/><p/>
K13 106 <p_><quote_>"What kind of resort is this?"<quote/> Savannah asked 
K13 107 Robin. It seemed as if they had driven through Little Mexico to get 
K13 108 here, and the place looked as though it could stand to be 
K13 109 remodeled.<p/>
K13 110 <p_><quote_>"Girl, I don't know. This is my first time here 
K13 111 too."<quote/><p/>
K13 112 <p_>They were standing in the entry, when a black man in his early 
K13 113 thirties came over to greet them. He looked pleased and excited to 
K13 114 see them. Robin pinched Savannah, as if to say, <quote_>"He's all 
K13 115 yours."<quote/> Savannah pinched her back, as if to say, <quote_>"I 
K13 116 don't want him, either."<quote/><p/>
K13 117 <p_><quote_>"Thanks for coming,"<quote/> he said. <quote_>"Is this 
K13 118 your first time here, ladies?"<quote/><p/>
K13 119 <p_>They both shook their heads yes.<p/>
K13 120 <p_><quote_>"Well, I'm Andre Williams, and me and a few of my 
K13 121 partners have formed the Stock Exchange group. We're trying to get 
K13 122 some exciting things happening in Phoenix, a place where 
K13 123 professional sisters and brothers can network and get to know one 
K13 124 another in an informal setting and, you know, dance a little, eat a 
K13 125 little, and drink a little."<quote/><p/>
K13 126 <p_><quote_>"Are all of you stockbrokers?"<quote/> Robin asked.<p/>
K13 127 <p_><quote_>"No, sister. We just wanted to come up with a catchy, 
K13 128 sophisticated name. It's the one we all liked. Do you two ladies 
K13 129 have a business card?"<quote/><p/>
K13 130 <p_>Robin did, but Savannah didn't have hers yet; she hadn't 
K13 131 anticipated needing one so soon. The moment this man said 
K13 132 <quote|>"network," Savannah cringed. She hated the whole notion. It 
K13 133 was as if black folks couldn't get together and have a good time 
K13 134 anymore unless they were in a position to do something for each 
K13 135 other. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned fun? There was a 
K13 136 little basket for the cards, and Robin tossed hers in. What were 
K13 137 they going to do with them? Savannah wondered. <quote_>"I'll bring 
K13 138 mine next time,"<quote/> she said, and peeked around a partition 
K13 139 into the adjoining room. There were fifteen or twenty people in it. 
K13 140 What a helluva turnout, she thought. It was easy to see that 
K13 141 Bernadine and Gloria weren't here yet, so she turned her attention 
K13 142 to Robin, who had walked over by the windows, where a woman with 
K13 143 long dreadlocks stood behind two tables. One was filled with books 
K13 144 by and about black people, the other with various African crafts: 
K13 145 silver and brass jewelry, kinte cloths, wooden and soapstone 
K13 146 sculpture, handmade cards, T-shirts with Africa on front, as well 
K13 147 as little bottles of fragrant oils. There were posters of Nelson 
K13 148 and Winnie Mandela, Malcolm X, and Martin, as well as Magic Johnson 
K13 149 and Michael Jordan.<p/>
K13 150 <p_>Robin had her wallet out and two black bangles already on her 
K13 151 wrists. Bernadine had told Savannah that the girl was a die-hard 
K13 152 shopaholic and terrible at managing her money. Savannah smiled at 
K13 153 the sister selling the merchandise, eyed one of the soapstone 
K13 154 sculptures, but kept her distance. She hadn't come here to shop. 
K13 155 Besides, she was now on something she'd never been on before: a 
K13 156 budget.<p/>
K13 157 <p_><quote_>"Come on, Robin,"<quote/> Savannah said, and headed for 
K13 158 one of the forty or so empty tables. When they sat down, it felt as 
K13 159 if they were on display, which Robin didn't seem to mind. She liked 
K13 160 getting attention, and it showed. There were ten men sitting at the 
K13 161 bar, a few of whom turned around and looked at them, and then 
K13 162 turned back toward the bar.<p/>
K13 163 <p_><quote_>"I thought this thing started at six,"<quote/> Robin 
K13 164 said. <quote_>"That's what Bernadine told me."<quote/><p/>
K13 165 <p_><quote_>"This is your world, I'm just in it,"<quote/> Savanna 
K13 166 said.<p/>
K13 167 <p_><quote_>"I wonder where everybody is. Well, at least the music 
K13 168 is good."<quote/><p/>
K13 169 <p_>'Forever Your Girl' was playing. <quote_>"I can't stand Paula 
K13 170 Abdul,"<quote/> Savannah said. <quote_>"She can't sing. Jodey 
K13 171 Watley can't sing, and if you want to know the truth, Janet Jackson 
K13 172 can't sing, either, I'm sick of all three of them."<quote/> But, 
K13 173 she thought, if somebody was to ask her to dance right now, she 
K13 174 would. But nobody did.<p/>
K13 175 <p_>A waitress came over and took their order. Robin ordered a 
K13 176 glass of wine, and Savannah, a margarita. <quote_>"That must be 
K13 177 where you dance,"<quote/> Robin said, pointing to a wide doorway, 
K13 178 and within a minute she had walked over to it, peered in, come 
K13 179 back, and sat down. <quote_>"Yep, they've got a DJ in there and 
K13 180 everything. There's some tables in there too. And not a soul on the 
K13 181 dance floor."<quote/><p/>
K13 182 <p_>Savannah was staring out the window at the golf course when the 
K13 183 waitress brought their drinks. <quote_>"I'll buy this 
K13 184 round,"<quote/> Robin said. <quote_>"And let's get some of that 
K13 185 food over there, girl. It's free, and I haven't eaten.<p/>
K13 186 <p_>They weren't stingy with the food, Savannah was thinking as she 
K13 187 filled her plate up with fresh fruit salad, tossed green salad, 
K13 188 pasta salad, and buffalo wings. Normally, she never ate chicken in 
K13 189 public because it always got stuck between her teeth, and plus, she 
K13 190 forgot to put her dental floss in her purse. But hell, nobody worth 
K13 191 worrying about was in here.<p/>
K13 192 <p_>Robin made two trips to the food table and drank her wine in 
K13 193 between plates. On the way here, she had told Savannah her life 
K13 194 story, which didn't seem to start until she met Russell. She told 
K13 195 Savannah <tf|>all about him. And Michael. And how she wanted to 
K13 196 have a baby before it was 'too late.' When she finally mentioned 
K13 197 her job as an underwriter and all it entailed, particularly how she 
K13 198 sometimes wrote proposals that brought in million-dollar accounts, 
K13 199 it sounded to Savannah like the only time Robin used common sense 
K13 200 was at work. <quote_>"It looks good on paper,"<quote/> Robin said, 
K13 201 <quote_>"but I'm still not making any <tf|>real money, and I'm 
K13 202 seriously thinking about looking for another job, at a bigger 
K13 203 company. The way things stand now, I'm living from paycheck to 
K13 204 paycheck and can't even afford to help pay for a nurse for my 
K13 205 daddy. That's pitiful,"<quote/> she said, as if she was talking to 
K13 206 herself. <quote_>"What the hell did I get a degree for?"<quote/><p/>
K13 207 <p_>The place was starting to fill up, but there was still no sign 
K13 208 of Gloria or Bernadine. Now on her second glass of wine, Robin went 
K13 209 back to her favorite subject: Russell. She apologized for his 
K13 210 philandering. <quote_>"Could he help it if he was so fine that 
K13 211 women flocked to him? If I'd been a little more patient and not 
K13 212 pressured him, maybe he would've married me,"<quote/> she said. 
K13 213 <quote_>"But it's not over till it's over."<quote/><p/>
K13 214 <p_>Savannah didn't say a word. She just sat there listening to the 
K13 215 shit and wanted to slap Robin. Knock some sense into her. Savannah 
K13 216 agreed with Bernadine: the woman <tf|>was a little on the dizzy 
K13 217 side when it came to men.<p/>
K13 218 <p_>Savannah sipped at her second margarita, thinking: This woman 
K13 219 is pitiful. Too hard up.
K13 220 
K14   1 <#FROWN:K14\><p_><quote_>"At the moment, my true wad could not be 
K14   2 farther from shooting. It is <tf|>work getting the two of you 
K14   3 together. I feel that any second I'm going to misstep in telling 
K14   4 this. It's very stressful."<quote/><p/>
K14   5 <p_><quote_>"Now listen,"<quote/> she said. <quote_>"Harvey leaves, 
K14   6 slamming the door, so the sign says CLOSED, and I, me, I am left, 
K14   7 abandoned right in the middle of things by Harvey, and I'm standing 
K14   8 there in the shop with the taciturn and very rich guy Forky, Forky 
K14   9 Pigtail, who's holding the necklace that I made in his big knuckly 
K14  10 fingers. He sits down on a step stool, he looks down at the 
K14  11 necklace, looks up at me. <tf_>What does he do?<tf/>"<quote/><p/>
K14  12 <p_><quote_>"He says, 'I really do have to see what it looks like 
K14  13 on someone before I know whether it's something I want.' And you 
K14  14 look down at your shirt with the green and black stars and you sort 
K14  15 of pluck at it and smile and say, 'I'm sorry, I'm not wearing the 
K14  16 clothes for that piece. It's really an evening piece, for a low-cut 
K14  17 dress.' With your finger you trace the ideal curve of the neckline 
K14  18 of the dress. And Fork says, 'Then unbutton your shirt.' Well, what 
K14  19 can you do? You unbutton the top three buttons of your shirt. With 
K14  20 each button, you feel the fabric shift slightly against your 
K14  21 collarbone. Fork stands up, letting the necklace dangle from his 
K14  22 left hand, and, to your astonishment, he begins unbuttoning the 
K14  23 buttons of his fly. Because of course he's a button-fly kind of 
K14  24 guy. He unbuttons three buttons. The two of you are still about ten 
K14  25 feet apart. You fold your shirt down, trying to make it follow the 
K14  26 line of the dress that you should be wearing to wear the necklace, 
K14  27 but looking down at yourself you see that you really need to undo 
K14  28 one more button, and you dart a glance at him - has he reached the 
K14  29 same conclusion? Oh no, he has! He is shaking his head. He says, 'I 
K14  30 think really you'll need to go down one more in order to wear your 
K14  31 necklace.' So you unbutton one more button, and he responds by 
K14  32 unbuttoning the last button of his fly. He doesn't do anything, he 
K14  33 doesn't reach in, you almost couldn't tell that his fly was undone, 
K14  34 if it weren't for the fact that you've just seen him undo it. Oh, 
K14  35 he is a bold bastard! What is he up to? He takes the necklace in 
K14  36 both his hands, by both ends, and he shakes it, indicating for you 
K14  37 to walk toward him, which you do. When you are standing close to 
K14  38 him, he says, 'I think it'll be easier if you turn around. Then 
K14  39 I'll be able to see the clasp.' So you turn around, and you see 
K14  40 this necklace, your own handiwork, descend very slowly in front of 
K14  41 your face, and you feel the dangly elements just touch your skin 
K14  42 and you try to hold your shirt so it doesn't get in the way, but 
K14  43 instead of doing the clasp, he lowers the necklace further and lets 
K14  44 it accommodate itself to your breasts, and you hear him say, 
K14  45 thoughtfully, 'Hmm, no, I really think the shirt has to come off 
K14  46 entirely before I can evaluate this necklace.
K14  47 The green and black stars clash with the stones.' So you 
K14  48 unbutton the shirt completely and let it fall off your arms. You're 
K14  49 wearing a black cotton undershirty thing, with very thin shoulder 
K14  50 straps. Very gently he drags your piece of jewelry up again, 
K14  51 against you, and then finally he fastens it, holding the ends away 
K14  52 from your neck so that his hands hardly touch you. You look down at 
K14  53 it. It's hard to tell, but you think it looks kind of beautiful. 
K14  54 Your nipples are visible through the black material. He's silent 
K14  55 behind you. You say, 'Don't you want to see it now?' But he says, ' 
K14  56 Wait, let me just do something.' And you hear a slight scrape of 
K14  57 the step stool against the floor, and you hear his shoes on the 
K14  58 steps, and then you hear some rustling, and the a very soft 
K14  59 rhythmic sound, the sound of the sleeve of his suit jacket making 
K14  60 repeated contact with one side of the jacket itself, and, as the 
K14  61 speed of the rhythm increases slightly, you hear every once in a 
K14  62 while a little sort of <tf|>plick or <tf|>click, a wet little 
K14  63 sound, and you know exactly what he's doing, and you hear his 
K14  64 voice, with a bit of strain in it, say, 'I think I'm ready to see 
K14  65 it now.' And you turn, and there he is, on the top step of this 
K14  66 little stool, with his cock and both balls pulled out of his pants, 
K14  67 and with each pull he makes on his cock you can see the skin pull 
K14  68 up slightly on his balls. I mean is this guy for real? And you 
K14  69 touch your shoulders with your hands, and you pull the straps of 
K14  70 your black undershirt down, and you pull it down around your waist, 
K14  71 so your breasts are right there, out, and now you take hold of your 
K14  72 breasts, your frans, and you lift them, so that each of the two 
K14  73 side stones of your necklace touches a nipple, and by moving your 
K14  74 breasts back and forth, you move your nipples, which are hard, back 
K14  75 and forth under the two cool dangly stones, and you see him 
K14  76 stroking faster and faster, he's starting to get the about-to-come 
K14  77 expression, and you smile at him and move a step closer, so your 
K14  78 breasts and your silver necklace and your collarbone are ready for 
K14  79 him, and then you look straight at him and you say, 'Well, what do 
K14  80 you think? Do you like it? As you see, it's really an evening 
K14  81 piece.' And the, stroking very fast, he bends his legs slightly and 
K14  82 then straightens them and he goes 'Ooh!' and then he comes in a hot 
K14  83 mess all over your art."<quote/><p/>
K14  84 <p_>There was a pause. She said, <quote_>"Does he buy the necklace 
K14  85 or does he just take his fixed fork and go home?"<quote/><p/>
K14  86 <p_><quote_>"I don't know. I assume he takes the paper towel that 
K14  87 he'd wrapped his fork in and uses it to wipe you off and wipe off 
K14  88 your necklace and then he buys it and gives it to you."<quote/><p/>
K14  89 <p_><quote_>"That's good. He sounds like an honorable sort. A bit 
K14  90 precipitate maybe. Um - would you excuse me for a 
K14  91 second?"<quote/><p/>
K14  92 <p_><quote|>"Sure." <p/>
K14  93 <p_><quote_>"I just - my mouth's dry - I want to get some more - 
K14  94 "<quote/><p/>
K14  95 <p_><quote|>"Sure," he said.<p/>
K14  96 <p_>There was a long pause. She returned.<p/>
K14  97 <p_><quote_>"It's funny that you cast me as an arts-and-craftsy 
K14  98 type,"<quote/> she said.<p/>
K14  99 <p_><quote_>"Not aggressively arts-and-craftsy. Are 
K14 100 you?"<quote/><p/>
K14 101 <p_><quote_>"Well, no. I'm really not, I don't think. Do you have a 
K14 102 ponytail?"<quote/> she asked.<p/>
K14 103 <p_><quote|>"No."<p/>
K14 104 <p_><quote_>"Then do you have an old-world smell?"<quote/><p/>
K14 105 <p_><quote_>"I don't think that would be the word for 
K14 106 it."<quote/><p/>
K14 107 <p_><quote_>"I wonder what your smell is."<quote/><p/>
K14 108 <p_><quote_>"I've been told I smell like a Cont<*_>e-acute<*/> 
K14 109 crayon,"<quote/> he said.<p/>
K14 110 <p_><quote|>"Hm."<p/>
K14 111 <p_><quote_>"Or I guess it was that I smelled like what a 
K14 112 Cont<*_>e-acute<*/> crayon would smell like if it had a 
K14 113 smell."<quote/><p/>
K14 114 <p_><quote_>"Well, that's good to know,"<quote/> she said. 
K14 115 <quote_>"Of course I have no idea what you're talking about. But 
K14 116 no, you know what your story reminded me of, when I was in the 
K14 117 kitchen just now?"<quote/><p/>
K14 118 <p_><quote|>"What?"<p/>
K14 119 <p_><quote_>"I was in a museum in Rome with my mother, and we 
K14 120 passed a statue that had all these discolorations on it, a nice 
K14 121 statue of a woman, and my mother pointed to a sort of mottled area 
K14 122 and she shook her head and said, 'You see? It's so realistic that 
K14 123 men feel they have to ... ' She didn't explain. And I don't know 
K14 124 now if she was serious or not. I was - I guess I was eighteen. I 
K14 125 thought, oh, okay, in churches in Italy, men come on the statues of 
K14 126 women."<quote/><p/>
K14 127 <p_><quote|>"Yes," he said, <quote_>"I think I do remember coming 
K14 128 on that statue. It's all a blur, though. There were so many statues 
K14 129 in those years."<quote/><p/>
K14 130 <p_><quote_>"Do you, as they say, like to travel?"<quote/> she 
K14 131 asked.<p/>
K14 132 <p_><quote_>"You mean get in a plane and fly somewhere for 
K14 133 recreation? No. I've never been to Rome. I spend my vacation money 
K14 134 in more important ways."<quote/><p/>
K14 135 <p_><quote_>"Like this call."<quote/><p/>
K14 136 <p_><quote_>"That's right. Now tell me, though, really, when your 
K14 137 mother pointed out that statue, was it faintly 
K14 138 arousing?"<quote/><p/>
K14 139 <p_><quote_>"I don't think it really was,"<quote/> she said. 
K14 140 <quote/>"It was just interesting, an interesting sexual fact, like 
K14 141 something in Ripley's. I'm not, by the way, to get back to 
K14 142 <tf|>your story for a second, I'm not wearing a black undershirt 
K14 143 under my shirt."<quote/><p/>
K14 144 <p_><quote_>"What are you wearing under your shirt?"<quote/><p/>
K14 145 <p_><quote_>"A bra."<quote/><p/>
K14 146 <p_><quote_>"What kind of bra?"<quote/><p/>
K14 147 <p_><quote_>"A nothing bra. A normal, white bra bra."<quote/><p/>
K14 148 <p_><quote|>"Oooo!"<p/>
K14 149 <p_><quote_>"It's shrunk slightly in the wash but it was my last 
K14 150 clean one."<quote/><p/>
K14 151 <p_><quote_>"It's always impressive to me that bras have to be 
K14 152 washed like other clothes. Does it clip on the front or on the 
K14 153 back?"<quote/><p/>
K14 154 <p_><quote_>"The back."<quote/><p/>
K14 155 <p_><quote_>"Shouldn't it come off?"<quote/><p/>
K14 156 <p_><quote_>"I don't think so,"<quote/> she said.<p/>
K14 157 <p_><quote_>"Oh, I can hear in your voice the sound of you frowning 
K14 158 and pulling in your chin to look down at them" Oh boy."<quote/><p/>
K14 159 <p_><quote_>"Hah hah!"<quote/><p/>
K14 160 <p_><quote_>"The idea of women looking down at their own breasts 
K14 161 drives me <tf|>nutso. They do it while they're walking. Some walk 
K14 162 with their arms sort of hovering in front of their breasts, or 
K14 163 awkwardly crossed in front of them, or they pretend to hold the 
K14 164 strap of their pocketbook so their hands are bent in front of them, 
K14 165 or they pretend to be adjusting their watch, or their bracelets, 
K14 166 and the fact that even fully clothed the helpless obviousness of 
K14 167 their breasts is embarrassing to them drives me absolutely 
K14 168 <tf|>nutso."<quote/><p/>
K14 169 <p_><quote_>"They see you staring, with your eyes <}_><-|> 
K14 170 sproinging<+|> springing<}/> out of your skull, of course they're 
K14 171 embarrassed."<quote/><p/>
K14 172 <p_><quote_>"No, I'm very discreet. And this is only in certain 
K14 173 moods, of course. Once I got into an wild state just standing at a 
K14 174 bus stop. It was rush hour, and there were all these women driving 
K14 175 to work, and they would drive by, and I would get this flash, this 
K14 176 briefest of glimpses, of the wide shoulder strap of their safety 
K14 177 belt crossing their breasts. That thick, densely woven material, 
K14 178 pulling itself tight right between them. That's all I could see, 
K14 179 hundreds of times, different colors of dresses, shirts, blouses, 
K14 180 over and over, every bra size and Lycra-cotton balance imaginable, 
K14 181 like frames of a movie. By the time the bus came, I was literally 
K14 182 unsteady, I could barely get the fare in the machine. What's that 
K14 183 noise?"<quote/><p/>
K14 184 <p_><quote_>"Nothing. I was just changing the phone to the other 
K14 185 ear."<quote/><p/>
K14 186 <p_><quote|>"Oh," he said. <quote_>"Did you see that thing about 
K14 187 the Chinese kid who suffered an episode of spontaneous human 
K14 188 combustion?"<quote/><p/>
K14 189 <p_><quote|>"No."<p/>
K14 190 <p_><quote_>"You really missed something. It was originally in one 
K14 191 of the tabloids, I think, but I heard about it on the radio. You 
K14 192 know about spontaneous combustion, right?"<quote/><p/>
K14 193 <p_><quote_>"I'm familiar with the general concept."<quote/><p/>
K14 194 <p_><quote_>"All right, well this kid apparently spontaneously 
K14 195 human combusted, but the combustion was confined to his genitals. 
K14 196 Boom! He was very uncomfortable. But see, I understand perfectly 
K14 197 how that could happen. I fear for my own genitals sometimes. I get 
K14 198 so fricking horny ... now there's another inadequate word ... so 
K14 199 porny, so gorny, so yorny ... I get so <tf|>yorny that I look down 
K14 200 at my cock-and-balls unit, and it's like I could take the whole 
K14 201 rigid assembly and start unscrewing it, around and around, and it 
K14 202 would come off as one solid thing, like a cotterless crank on a 
K14 203 bicycle, and I would hand it over to you to use as a 
K14 204 dildo."<quote/><p/>
K14 205 <p_><quote_>"Okay then, hand it over. Although I've never cottoned 
K14 206 to dildos particularly. I used one once, to oblige someone, and I 
K14 207 got a yeast infection. I think it was called a 'Mighty Mini Brute.' 
K14 208 "<quote/><p/>
K14 209 <p_><quote_>"That's a fair description of my ... crank."<quote/><p/>
K14 210 
K15   1 <#FROWN:K15\><p_>The urge, she knew, was crazy - a lifetime, or 
K15   2 much of one, had passed since she had last touched her mother's 
K15   3 living hand. Yet the urge to go back, to escape the years, to be 
K15   4 her mother's young child rather than the crabby grandmother of her 
K15   5 dead daughter's children, was so sharp that tears came to her eyes. 
K15   6 She flung the phone book off the bed and buried her face in the 
K15   7 pillow. Hector Scott must not see what she was feeling - it was too 
K15   8 crazy, and he'd think it was his fault.<p/>
K15   9 <p_>The General <tf|>did think it was his fault, and he was 
K15  10 horrified. What had he done now? Things were getting impossible. He 
K15  11 and Aurora were both so sensitized on the subject of sex that the 
K15  12 most casual reference to it was likely to send them over the edge. 
K15  13 He didn't really know a thing about Aurora's mother's affairs, and 
K15  14 even if she had had a lot, so what? That was in New Haven, and a 
K15  15 long time ago. Besides, Yale was in New Haven, and people who lived 
K15  16 around colleges were always apt to be having affairs. Being at Yale 
K15  17 was not like being at the Point. Now he had hurt Aurora's feelings, 
K15  18 and they hadn't even had breakfast. If the slightest reference to 
K15  19 sex was going to cause her to burst into in tears, he might as well 
K15  20 move out - but where would he go to? He had no children - he and 
K15  21 Evelyn had kept putting it off, and then Evelyn got too old. Teddy 
K15  22 was the only one of Aurora's grandchildren who really liked him, 
K15  23 but Teddy was at least half crazy and could barely manage his own 
K15  24 life. It was a grim picture he faced, filled with nothing but old 
K15  25 soldiers' homes, endless bridge games, and widows who probably 
K15  26 wouldn't turn out to be half as interesting as Aurora. And even if 
K15  27 they were half as interesting, he loved Aurora, not them. She'd get 
K15  28 another boyfriend, she'd never come to visit, and he'd be alone. 
K15  29 Perhaps he'd do better just to join the homeless, once he got off 
K15  30 his crutches. The papers maintained that most of the homeless were 
K15  31 Vietnam veterans, and he had to admit that a good many of the 
K15  32 homeless he'd spotted in his drives around Houston looked as if 
K15  33 they might be veterans. Well, he was a veteran himself - he could 
K15  34 go back to his own and live in a tent in a park when Aurora threw 
K15  35 him out.<p/>
K15  36 <p_>The grimness of it all reduced the General to a state not far 
K15  37 from tears. He had never supposed he would end up in a tent in a 
K15  38 park - he had never been very good at erecting tents, for one 
K15  39 thing. Most enlisted men could erect tents far more efficiently 
K15  40 than he could. It might be that he'd have to pay one of the 
K15  41 homeless enlisted men to set up his tent for him. That would be 
K15  42 rather a sorry pass for a general to come to, but if that was the 
K15  43 best he could do, then so be it.<p/>
K15  44 <p_>Aurora felt the General fumbling for her hand and let him hold 
K15  45 it, but she didn't immediately remove her face from the pillow. She 
K15  46 enjoyed, for a few moments, the ridiculous fantasy that her mother 
K15  47 was once more holding her in her arms, as her mother had often done 
K15  48 during her childhood. It was a <tf|>ridiculous fantasy, but at the 
K15  49 same time it was deeply comforting, and Aurora clung to it as long 
K15  50 as she could before reluctantly raising her face and resuming the 
K15  51 taxing life of someone who had miserable grandchildren and a 
K15  52 played-out lover.<p/>
K15  53 <p_>Looking over at the played-out lover, she noticed that his 
K15  54 Adam's apple was quivering, a sign that he was in distress. 
K15  55 Hector's Adam's apple quivered only on those occasions when she had 
K15  56 vexed him almost to tears. Now it seemed to have happened again, 
K15  57 although, as she recalled, he was the one who had accused her and 
K15  58 her mother of being loose, an accusation to which she had only made 
K15  59 the mildest reply. What could have happened to hurt the man's 
K15  60 feelings now?<p/>
K15  61 <p_><quote_>"Hector, are you getting ready to cry, and if not, why 
K15  62 is your Adam's apple behaving that way?"<quote/> Aurora asked.<p/>
K15  63 <p_><quote|>"Sorry," the General said. <quote_>"I guess I just 
K15  64 never thought I'd end up in a tent. Old age is full of 
K15  65 surprises."<quote/><p/>
K15  66 <p_><quote_>"<tf|>Life is full of surprises."<quote/> Aurora said. 
K15  67 <quote_>"They are apt to come at all ages, in my observation. I 
K15  68 must say I was quite surprised to look over just now and see your 
K15  69 Adam's apple bobbing like an apple in a barrel. What's the matter? 
K15  70 All I was doing was looking up psychoanalysts in the phone book. 
K15  71 Are you going to begrudge me even that mild pleasure?"<quote/><p/>
K15  72 <p_><quote_>"No, no, you can have all the analysts you 
K15  73 want,"<quote/> the General said. It was perfectly obvious that she 
K15  74 had had her little fit and was now in a good humor, and yet the 
K15  75 fact that she had surprised him in a low mood was as likely as not 
K15  76 going to cast <tf|>her back into a low mood, and this time she 
K15  77 would blame him. Sometimes it was so hard to get through a morning, 
K15  78 not to mention a day, with Aurora that on the whole he thought it 
K15  79 might be easier to be homeless and live in a tent.<p/>
K15  80 <p_><quote_>"I was just worrying about my tent,"<quote/> the 
K15  81 General said, not quite able to detach himself from the grim vision 
K15  82 he had just conjured up.<p/>
K15  83 <p_><quote_>"What tent?"<quote/> Aurora asked, surveying her nice 
K15  84 sunny bedroom. <quote_>"Have you been dreaming of the Battle of the 
K15  85 Somme again? Does this look like a tent we're quarreling 
K15  86 in?"<quote/><p/>
K15  87 <p_><quote_>"No, it's a bed, but I've decided to go live in a tent 
K15  88 in Herman Park when you finally throw me out,"<quote/> the General 
K15  89 said. <quote_>"For one thing, I won't last long in a tent, and a 
K15  90 short end is about the best prospect I have to look forward to 
K15  91 now."<quote/><p/>
K15  92 <p_>Aurora saw to her amazement that the man was genuinely upset, 
K15  93 and for no reason - when had she ever said anything about throwing 
K15  94 him out?<p/>
K15  95 <p_><quote_>"A tent in Herman Park would be a damn sight better 
K15  96 than one of those stupid old soldiers' homes with no old soldiers 
K15  97 in them,"<quote/> the General said, his Adam's apple still 
K15  98 aquiver.<p/>
K15  99 <p_><quote_>"Hector, I'm baffled,"<quote/> Aurora admitted. 
K15 100 <quote_>"You brought up my mother, and the thought of her undid me 
K15 101 for a moment. I loved my mother very much and she died much too 
K15 102 young. I think I have every right to be undone by her memory, but 
K15 103 that's all that happened. I don't have the least desire to dispatch 
K15 104 you to a tent in the park and I don't know how you can have 
K15 105 conceived such a notion. This convinces me that we had better make 
K15 106 an appointment with Dr. Bruckner quickly. You might be beginning to 
K15 107 drift off your moorings or something."<quote/><p/>
K15 108 <p_>The General was both relieved and annoyed: relieved that Aurora 
K15 109 was no longer angry, annoyed that she kept slipping into nautical 
K15 110 metaphors.<p/>
K15 111 <p_><quote_>"Aurora, I'm a general, not an admiral,"<quote/> he 
K15 112 reminded her, for at least the hundredth time. <quote_>"Generals do 
K15 113 not drift off their moorings. Generals aren't moored. Even admirals 
K15 114 aren't moored. Boats are moored."<quote/><p/>
K15 115 <p_><quote_>"Well, touchy, touchy,"<quote/> Aurora said. 
K15 116 <quote_>"Perhaps the word I was seeking was 'mired.' You can hardly 
K15 117 deny that we're mired in a rather quarrelsome embrace."<quote/><p/>
K15 118 <p_><quote_>"The hell we are,"<quote/> the General said. 
K15 119 <quote_>"This isn't an embrace. I remember our embraces. I wish I 
K15 120 was dead. Then you could embrace anyone you could 
K15 121 catch."<quote/><p/>
K15 122 <p_><quote_>"I can anyway,"<quote/> Aurora informed him. 
K15 123 <quote_>"It's obviously not doing me much good, but I've always 
K15 124 claimed the right to embrace people at will. That's where this 
K15 125 conversation started, remember? You said I was loose, and my mother 
K15 126 before me."<quote/><p/>
K15 127 <p_>The General recalled that he <tf|>had said something like that. 
K15 128 He said it not long before he decided to go live in a tent. Now he 
K15 129 couldn't remember why the subject had come up in the first place. 
K15 130 They had been talking about Vienna or something and then the 
K15 131 quarrel started.<p/>
K15 132 <p_><quote_>"Well, I suppose I popped off." he admitted. 
K15 133 <quote_>"Did she have affairs or didn't she? Let's get this 
K15 134 settled."<quote/><p/>
K15 135 <p_><quote_>"She loved the gardener,"<quote/> Aurora said. 
K15 136 <quote_>"Before he arrived I certainly hope she had a few affairs. 
K15 137 What's a girl to do?"<quote/><p/>
K15 138 <p_><quote_>"What do you mean, what's a girl to do?"<quote/> the 
K15 139 General asked. <quote_>"She was married. Why can't a girl who's 
K15 140 married sleep with her husband?"<quote/><p/>
K15 141 <p_>Aurora was remembering a conversation she had had with her 
K15 142 mother once - it was after a concert in Boston. They were walking 
K15 143 across the Commons and it was snowing. She could not remember the 
K15 144 program, but it seemed to her Brahms had been on it. Her mother 
K15 145 confessed to a considerable weakness for Brahms. The evening snow 
K15 146 was beautiful, falling on the Commons; the air was wintry and 
K15 147 clean. Her mother, Amelia, had evidently been somewhat more stirred 
K15 148 by the music than Aurora - just about to marry her beau Rudyard - 
K15 149 had realized. Out of the blue her mother made a startling 
K15 150 statement.<p/>
K15 151 <p_><quote_>"I ought to tell you that your father has abandoned my 
K15 152 bed,"<quote/> her mother said. <quote_>"The truth is he abandoned 
K15 153 it eleven years ago."<quote/><p/>
K15 154 <p_>Aurora did not immediately comprehend.<p/>
K15 155 <p_><quote|>"Why?" she asked. <quote_>"Isn't it a comfortable 
K15 156 bed?"<quote/><p/>
K15 157 <p_>Her mother who rarely looked happy but even more rarely looked 
K15 158 sad - who made it a point of principle never to look sad, in fact - 
K15 159 pursed her lips for a moment and gave her daughter a look that was 
K15 160 unmistakably sad.<p/>
K15 161 <p_><quote_>"It's not the bed he finds uncomfortable,"<quote/> she 
K15 162 said. <quote_>"It's the woman in it. It's me he doesn't 
K15 163 like."<quote/><p/>
K15 164 <p_>Aurora did not remember how the conversation ended, though now 
K15 165 she wished she could. As soon as she got her memory project really 
K15 166 cranked up she meant to go through her vast collection of old 
K15 167 engagement books and concert programs and pin down the concert. If 
K15 168 she could recover the program, she might be able to recall the end 
K15 169 of the conversation. The two things she was sure of were that her 
K15 170 mother had used the word <quote|>"abandoned," and that she had 
K15 171 mentioned eleven years.<p/>
K15 172 <p_><quote_>"My father didn't sleep with her for eleven years, or 
K15 173 possibly longer,"<quote/> Aurora said. <quote_>"My mother lived for 
K15 174 six years after she told me that - so it was probably more like 
K15 175 seventeen years that he didn't sleep with her. What do you think of 
K15 176 that, General?"<quote/><p/>
K15 177 <p_><quote_>"If you're thinking it's some kind of record, forget 
K15 178 it,"<quote/> the General said. <quote_>"I went more than twenty 
K15 179 years without sleeping with Evelyn."<quote/><p/>
K15 180 <p_><quote_>"But did you dislike her?"<quote/> Aurora asked.<p/>
K15 181 <p_><quote_>"No, not particularly,"<quote/> the General said. 
K15 182 <quote_>"She was a little chirpy, but I didn't exactly dislike 
K15 183 her."<quote/><p/>
K15 184 <p_><quote_>"Then what happened?"<quote/> Aurora asked.<p/>
K15 185 <p_><quote_>"I really have no idea,"<quote/> the General said. 
K15 186 <quote_>"We just lost the habit, somehow. There came a time when I 
K15 187 don't think it would have occurred to either one of us to go near 
K15 188 the other sexually. Otherwise we got along pretty well."<quote/><p/>
K15 189 <p_><quote|>"Goodness," Aurora said. <quote_>"I believe I'll have 
K15 190 to think this over, Hector. If nothing else it explains why you 
K15 191 were so enthusiastic when we were first getting to know one 
K15 192 another. At the time I was quite swept away by your 
K15 193 enthusiasm."<quote/><p/>
K15 194 <p_><quote_>"Swept away, my ass,"<quote/> the General said. 
K15 195 <quote_>"It took me a good five years to seduce you. Or to convince 
K15 196 you to seduce me, whichever it was that finally 
K15 197 happened."<quote/><p/>
K15 198 <p_><quote_>"I remember it as me being swept away,"<quote/> Aurora 
K15 199 said. <quote_>"If you didn't sleep with your wife for more than 
K15 200 twenty years, then it's no wonder. I hope we can discuss this 
K15 201 matter with Dr. Bruckner at our first session, if that's what you 
K15 202 call them. I find it intensely interesting, particularly in light 
K15 203 of what I've just been remembering about my mother. I want to hear 
K15 204 more about it."<quote/><p/>
K15 205 <p_><quote_>"We just stopped sleeping together, there isn't any 
K15 206 more to hear,"<quote/> the General said.
K15 207 
K16   1 <#FROWN:K16\><p_>Twice a week in every week of summer except the 
K16   2 last in July and the first in August, their mother shut the front 
K16   3 door, the white, eight-panel door that served as backdrop for every 
K16   4 Easter, First Holy Communion, Confirmation, and graduation photo in 
K16   5 the family album, and with the flimsy screen leaning against her 
K16   6 shoulder turned the key in the black lock, gripped the curve of the 
K16   7 elaborate wrought-iron handle that had been sculpted to resemble a 
K16   8 black vine curled into a question mark, and in what seemed a brief 
K16   9 but accurate imitation of a desperate housebreaker, wrung the door 
K16  10 on its hinges until, well satisfied, she turned, slipped away from 
K16  11 the screen as if she were throwing a cloak from her shoulders, and 
K16  12 said, <quote_>"Let's go."<quote/><p/>
K16  13 <p_>Down the steps the three children went before her (the screen 
K16  14 door behind them easing itself closed with what sounded like three 
K16  15 short, sorrowful expirations of breath), the two girls in summer 
K16  16 dresses and white sandals, the boy in long khaki pants and a thin 
K16  17 white shirt, button<?_>-<?/>down collar and short sleeves. She 
K16  18 herself wore a cotton shirtwaist and short white gloves and heels 
K16  19 that clicked against the concrete of the driveway and the sidewalk 
K16  20 and sent word across the damp morning lawns that the Daileys (Lucy 
K16  21 and the three children) were once again on their way to the 
K16  22 city.<p/>
K16  23 <p_>The neighborhood at this hour was still and fresh and full of 
K16  24 birdsong and the children marked the ten shady blocks to the bus 
K16  25 with three landmarks. The first was the ragged hedge of the 
K16  26 Lynches' corner lot where lived, in a dirty house made ramshackle 
K16  27 by four separate, slapdash additions, ten children, three 
K16  28 grandparents, a mother, a father, and a bachelor uncle who was 
K16  29 responsible, no doubt, for the shattered brown bottle that lay on 
K16  30 the edge of the driveway. The second was a slate path that 
K16  31 intersected a neat green lawn, each piece of slate the exact smooth 
K16  32 color, either lavendel or gray or pale yellow, of a Necco candy 
K16  33 wafer. Third was the steel eight-foot fence at the edge of the 
K16  34 paved playground of the school they had all attended until June and 
K16  35 would attend again in September, although it appeared to them as 
K16  36 they passed it now as something forlorn and defeated, something 
K16  37 that the wind might take away - something that could rumble with 
K16  38 footsteps and shriek with bells and hold them in its belly for six 
K16  39 hours each day only in the wildest, the most terrible, the most 
K16  40 unimaginable (and, indeed, not one of the three even imagined it as 
K16  41 they passed) of dreams.<p/>
K16  42 <p_>At the bus stop, the tall white sign with its odd, flat, 
K16  43 perforated pole drew them like magnets. They touched it, towing the 
K16  44 pebbles at its base. They jumped up to slap its face. They held it 
K16  45 in one hand and leaned out into the road looking for the first 
K16  46 glint of sun against the white crown and wide black windshield of 
K16  47 the bus that would take them to the avenue.<p/>
K16  48 <p_>Their mother smoked a cigarette on the sidewalk behind them, as 
K16  49 she did on each of these mornings, her pocketbook hung in the crook 
K16  50 of her arm, the white gloves she would pull on as soon as the bus 
K16  51 appeared squeezed together in her free hand. The sun at 
K16  52 nine-fifteen had already begun to push its heat through the soles 
K16  53 of her stockings and beneath the fabric-covered cardboard of her 
K16  54 belt. She touched the silver metal of its buckle, breathed in to 
K16  55 gain a moment's space between fabric and flesh. Across the street a 
K16  56 deli and a bar and a podiatrist's office shared a squat brick 
K16  57 building that was shaded by trees. Beyond it a steeple rose - the 
K16  58 gray steeple of the Presbyterian church - into a sky that was blue 
K16  59 and cloudless. Swinging from the bus-stop sign, the children failed 
K16  60 to imagine for their mother, just as they had failed to imagine for 
K16  61 the building where they went to school, any other life but the 
K16  62 still and predictable one she presented on those mornings, although 
K16  63 even as she dropped her cigarette to her side and stepped on the 
K16  64 butt with her first step toward them (it was a woman's subtle, 
K16  65 sneaky way of finishing a smoke) she was aware of the stunned 
K16  66 hopelessness with which she moved. Of time draining itself from the 
K16  67 scene in a slow leak.<p/>
K16  68 <p_>Briefly terrified, the younger girl took her mother's hand as 
K16  69 the bus wheezed toward the curb.<p/>
K16  70 <p_>Even the swift, gritty breeze that rushed through the slices of 
K16  71 open window seemed at this hour to be losing the freshness of 
K16  72 morning - some cool air clung to it, but in patches and tatters, as 
K16  73 if the coming heat of the afternoon had already begun to wear 
K16  74 through.<p/>
K16  75 <p_>The children squinted their eyes against it and shook back 
K16  76 their hair. Watching the houses go by, they were grateful that 
K16  77 theirs was not one of them to be left, after each stop, in the 
K16  78 expelled gray exhaust, and as the bus moved past the cemetery they 
K16  79 felt - all unconsciously - the eternal disappointment of the people 
K16  80 whose markers lay so near the road. Who saw (because they imagined 
K16  81 the dead to be at eye level with the ground, the grass pulled like 
K16  82 a blanket up to their noses) the walking living through the black 
K16  83 stakes of the iron fence and the filtered refuse of what seemed 
K16  84 many summers - ice-cream wrappers, soda cans, cigarette butts, and 
K16  85 yellowed athletic socks - that had gathered at its base.<p/>
K16  86 <p_>Where the cemetery ended, the stonecutter's yard began, a 
K16  87 jumble of unmarked and broken tombstones that parodied the order of 
K16  88 the real graves and seemed in its chaos to indicate a backlog of 
K16  89 orders, a hectic rate of demand. (Their father's joke, no matter 
K16  90 how many times they drove this way: <quote_>"People are dying to 
K16  91 get in there."<quote/>) Then, at the entrance to the yard, a 
K16  92 showroom - it looked for all the world like a car showroom - that 
K16  93 displayed behind its tall plate glass huge marble monuments and 
K16  94 elaborate crypts and the slithering reflected body of their bus, 
K16  95 their own white faces at three windows.<p/>
K16  96 <p_>They passed another church, a synagogue, and then a last 
K16  97 ramshackle yard where chickens pecked at the dirt in speckled 
K16  98 sunlight and what the children understood to be a contraption in 
K16  99 which wine was made (although they couldn't say how they knew this) 
K16 100 hulked among the vines and the shadows, through which they also 
K16 101 glimpsed, passing by, a toothless Italian man named (and they could 
K16 102 not say how they knew this, either) Mr. Hootchie-Koo, as he 
K16 103 shuffled through the dirt in baggy pants and bedroom slippers.<p/>
K16 104 <p_>Now the large suburban trees fell away. There was another 
K16 105 church and then on both sides of the road a wide expanse of 
K16 106 shadeless parking lot, the backs of stores, traffic. Their mother 
K16 107 raised her hand to pull the cord that rang the buzzer and then 
K16 108 waited in the aisle for them to go before her toward the front, 
K16 109 hand over hand like experienced seamen between the silver edges of 
K16 110 the seats. Their first sight as they touched the ground was always 
K16 111 the identical Chinese couple in the narrow laundromat, looking up 
K16 112 through the glass door from their eternal pile of white and pale 
K16 113 blue laundry.<p/>
K16 114 <p_>As they stood on the corner the bus they had just deserted, 
K16 115 suddenly grown taller and louder and far more dangerous, passed 
K16 116 before their noses, spilling its heat on their thin shoes.<p/>
K16 117 <p_>When the light changed they crossed. Here the sidewalk was 
K16 118 wider, twice as wide as it was where they lived, and they began to 
K16 119 catch a whiff, a sense, of their destination, the way some sailors, 
K16 120 hundreds of miles out, are said to catch the first scent of land. 
K16 121 There was a bar - a saloon was how the children thought of it - 
K16 122 with a stuccoed front and a single mysterious brown window, a 
K16 123 rounded doorway like the entrance to a cave that breathed a sharp 
K16 124 and darkly shining breath upon them, a destillation of night and 
K16 125 starlight and Scotch. Two black men passed by. In a dark and narrow 
K16 126 candy store that smelled exotically of newsprint and bubble gum 
K16 127 they were each allowed to choose one comic book from the wooden 
K16 128 rack and their mother gathered these in her gloved hand, placed 
K16 129 them, a copy of the <tf_>Daily News<tf/>, and a pack of 
K16 130 butterscotch Life Savers on the narrow shelf beside the register, 
K16 131 and paid with a single bill.<p/>
K16 132 <p_>Outside, she redistributed the comics and placed a piece of 
K16 133 candy on each tongue, fortifying the children, or so it seemed, for 
K16 134 the next half of their journey. She herded them into the shaded 
K16 135 entry of a clothing store, another cave formed by two deep windows 
K16 136 that paralleled each other and contained, it seemed, a single 
K16 137 example of every item sold by the store, most of which was worn by 
K16 138 pale mannequins with painted hair and chipped fingers or mere 
K16 139 pieces of mannequins: head, torso, foot. The store was closed at 
K16 140 this hour and the aisles were lined with piles of thin gray 
K16 141 cardboard boxes that sank into one another and overflowed with 
K16 142 navy-blue socks or white underpants as if these items had somehow 
K16 143 multiplied themselves throughout the night.<p/>
K16 144 <p_>When the bus appeared it was as if from the next storefront and 
K16 145 they ran across the wide sidewalk to meet it, their mother pausing 
K16 146 behind them to step on another cigarette. She offered the driver 
K16 147 the four slim transfers while the children picked their way down 
K16 148 the aisles. There was not the luxury of empty seats there had been 
K16 149 on the first bus and so they squeezed together three to a narrow 
K16 150 seat, their mother standing in the aisle beside them, her dress, 
K16 151 her substantial thigh and belly underneath blue-and-white cotton, 
K16 152 blocking them shielding them, all unaware, from the drunks and the 
K16 153 gamblers and the various tardy (and so clearly dissipated) 
K16 154 businessmen who rode this bus though never the first because this 
K16 155 was the one that both passed the racetrack and crossed the city 
K16 156 line.<p/>
K16 157 <p_>All unaware, noses in their comics, her three children leaned 
K16 158 together in what might have been her shadow, had the light been 
K16 159 right, but was in reality merely the length that the warmth of her 
K16 160 body and the odor of her talc extended.<p/>
K16 161 <p_>At the subway, the very breath of their destination rose to 
K16 162 meet them in the constant underground breeze that began to whip the 
K16 163 girls' dresses as soon as they descended the first of the long set 
K16 164 of dirty stairs. ('No spitting' a sign above their heads read, 
K16 165 proving to them that they were entering an exotic and dangerous 
K16 166 realm where people might, at any given moment, begin spitting.) The 
K16 167 long corridors echoed with their mother's footsteps and roared 
K16 168 distantly with the comings and goings of the trains. There were ads 
K16 169 along the walls, not as large or as high as billboards but somehow 
K16 170 just as compelling, and if it had not been for their mother's 
K16 171 sudden haste, for she had begun rushing as soon as they left the 
K16 172 bus, they would have lingered to read them more carefully, to study 
K16 173 their bold messages and larger-than-life faces and garish cartoons, 
K16 174 to absorb more fully what appeared to them to be a vivid, 
K16 175 still-life bazaar.<p/>
K16 176 <p_>And then bars, prison bars, a wall of bars, and, even more 
K16 177 fantastically, a wall of revolving doors all made of black iron 
K16 178 bars. Their mother passed another bill through the tiny half-moon 
K16 179 aperture in what otherwise seemed a solid box lit green from within 
K16 180 and received, in reply to her shouted <quote_>"Four, 
K16 181 please,"<quote/> a sliding handful of tokens and coins.<p/>
K16 182 <p_>They were each given their own, given only the time it took to 
K16 183 cross the dim expanse from token booth to turnstile to feel between 
K16 184 their fingers the three opened spaces in the center of the embossed 
K16 185 coin (a tactile memory that would return to them years later when 
K16 186 they drew their first peace symbols) before they slipped it into 
K16 187 the eternity of the machine and pressed with hands or waist or 
K16 188 heart the single wooden paddle that clicked, gave way, and admitted 
K16 189 them.<p/>
K16 190 
K16 191 
K17   1 <#FROWN:K17\><h|>10
K17   2 <p_><quote_>"YOU HAVE an Academy ring,"<quote/> the woman at the 
K17   3 stall opposite said to Browne. She was dark and slim, wearing 
K17   4 sneakers and jeans. Her booth advertised a patented star-finder for 
K17   5 the northern hemisphere.<p/>
K17   6 <p_>Browne turned the class ring on his finger.<p/>
K17   7 <p_><quote_>"Yes. Class of sixty-eight."<quote/><p/>
K17   8 <p_>It was opening day at the Maritime Exposition at the 42nd 
K17   9 Regiment Armory in New York. The crowds were sparse. All day he had 
K17  10 been sitting beside a screen on which he himself appeared, 
K17  11 extolling the virtues of Altan boats. He was heartily tired of 
K17  12 hearing himself.<p/>
K17  13 <p_><quote_>"My ex-husband graduated from the Academy. His name is 
K17  14 Charlie Bloodworth. Ever run into him?"<quote/><p/>
K17  15 <p_><quote|>"Never," Browne said.<p/>
K17  16 <p_><quote_>"He's at Green Cove Springs now. That's where they make 
K17  17 the old ships into razor blades."<quote/><p/>
K17  18 <p_><quote_>"So I've heard,"<quote/> Browne said.<p/>
K17  19 <p_><quote_>"We lived in Atsugi,"<quote/> she said. <quote_>"Guam, 
K17  20 too."<quote/><p/>
K17  21 <p_>Looming above them were the hulls of two Altan stock boats. One 
K17  22 was the Highlander Forty-five, which from his own experience Browne 
K17  23 knew was badly made. The second was the Altan Forty, which he 
K17  24 regarded highly. Before sailing south, Browne had actually made a 
K17  25 tape on which he praised the Highlander Forty-five. He did not play 
K17  26 it. Instead he played his pitch for the Altan Forty.  stand-up sign 
K17  27 beside the Forty proclaimed it to be the stock version of the boat 
K17  28 Matty Hylan would sail around the world. There was a picture of 
K17  29 Hylan on the stand-up.<p/>
K17  30 <p_><quote_>"I like your tape,"<quote/> the slim dark woman said. 
K17  31 She was deeply suntanned. <quote_>"I'm really hung 
K17  32 over."<quote/><p/>
K17  33 <p_>In the stuffy, humming air of the armor, he could not be sure 
K17  34 he had heard her correctly.<p/>
K17  35 <p_><quote_>"Too bad,"<quote/> he said politely.<p/>
K17  36 <p_><quote_>"Know any cures?"<quote/><p/>
K17  37 <p_><quote|>"No," he said. <quote_>"I don't drink much."<quote/><p/>
K17  38 <p_>The woman laughed.<p/>
K17  39 <p_><quote_>"How about watching my booth?"<quote/> she asked.<p/>
K17  40 <p_>Browne agreed and she walked away, still laughing.<p/>
K17  41 <p_>As the afternoon wore on, the crowds became even smaller. The 
K17  42 woman did not return to her star-finder booth. Browne had brought 
K17  43 along a volume of naval history. That afternoon, he read about 
K17  44 Trafalgar, Nelson and Collingwood advancing in separate columns 
K17  45 toward the Franco-Spanish fleet, breaking the line.<p/>
K17  46 <p_>At some point, he decided to get up and take an aspirin. Well 
K17  47 over an hour had passed since the woman at the stall opposite had 
K17  48 disappeared. Browne set out in pursuit of a drinking fountain.<p/>
K17  49 <p_>Searching for water, he passed through the wing in which the 
K17  50 powerboats were displayed. It was much more crowded than the 
K17  51 sailing section. There were overweight matrons in yachting caps and 
K17  52 couples with matching tattoos. There were cabin cruisers and sleek 
K17  53 cigarette boats with gleaming fins. Model interiors blazed with 
K17  54 chrome and tiger-striped upholstery. Browne walked through it all 
K17  55 feeling light-headed. When he came to the beige curtain that 
K17  56 divided the displays from the storage and receiving section, he 
K17  57 slipped past it into the gloom.<p/>
K17  58 <p_>The storage area was a wilderness of crates and cardboard boxes 
K17  59 piled to the forty-foot ceiling. Beyond the crates, on a buffed 
K17  60 concrete floor, stood two armored personnel carriers of the New 
K17  61 York National Guard. Near them was a drinking fountain.<p/>
K17  62 <p_>On his way to the fountain, Browne heard something like a 
K17  63 sensual moan from the area behind the crates. Looking more closely, 
K17  64 he saw the balding head of a middle-aged man above one rank of 
K17  65 boxes. Extending from the boxes along the floor was a woman's foot 
K17  66 with a tanned ankle and sneaker. Between one thing and another, 
K17  67 Browne formed the impression that a sexual act was taking place. 
K17  68 Drinking from the fountain, downing his aspirin, he felt angry and 
K17  69 revolted. He avoided the area on his way back.<p/>
K17  70 <p_>The woman from the star-finder booth returned fifteen minutes 
K17  71 after Browne got back to his own booth. She seemed pleased with 
K17  72 herself and he thought somehow it must have been she he had seen 
K17  73 sporting among the stacked boxes. The exposition could be a wild 
K17  74 scene, the top of the year for certain people. Browne had heard 
K17  75 stories about the casual sex but he had never seen any evidence of 
K17  76 it before.<p/>
K17  77 <p_>A little before six o'clock, Pat Fay, the designer whom Browne 
K17  78 had pressed into service at the Staten Island yard, came up and 
K17  79 looked at the stand-up ad for the Altan Forty that had Matty 
K17  80 Hylan's picture on it.<p/>
K17  81 <p_><quote_>"You might as well take it down,"<quote/> Fay said.<p/>
K17  82 <p_><quote|>"Why?" Browne asked. He could see that the designer had 
K17  83 been drinking.<p/>
K17  84 <p_>Fay handed him a copy of the <tf_>New York Post<tf/>, open to 
K17  85 page three. The headline over a three-column story inquired, 
K17  86 <quote_>"Where's Matty?"<quote/><p/>
K17  87 <p_>There was a metal chair handy at a table piled with Altan 
K17  88 brochures, so he sat down to read the story. Its substance was that 
K17  89 in the face of bankruptcy and mounting scandal, Matty Hylan, bon 
K17  90 vivant and captain of commerce, had vanished.<p/>
K17  91 <p_><quote_>"They might have that race,"<quote/> Fay said. 
K17  92 <quote_>"Matty won't be in it."<quote/><p/>
K17  93 <p_><quote_>"What I'm wondering,"<quote/> Browne said, <quote_>"is 
K17  94 what does this mean to us?"<quote/><p/>
K17  95 <p_>Fay shrugged and walked away.<p/>
K17  96 <p_>Browne stayed seated at the table for a while, trying to ponder 
K17  97 the results of Hylan's disappearance. All at once the idea came to 
K17  98 him of volunteering to enter the race on his own. If he could not 
K17  99 sail the boat Hylan was having made in Finland, he might sail the 
K17 100 stock model on the floor in front of him. He was sure it was a good 
K17 101 boat. He felt a surge of confidence in his own abilities as a 
K17 102 sailor. Immediately he began composing, with a pencil on a sheet of 
K17 103 lined yellow paper, a letter to Harry Thorne.<p/>
K17 104 <p_>He had finished the letter and pocketed it when he saw the 
K17 105 woman who sold star-finders still lounging before her stall. She 
K17 106 sat on the ledge of industrial carpeting at the corner of the booth 
K17 107 with one leg folded under her. Browne thought she was watching him 
K17 108 suggestively.<p/>
K17 109 <p_><quote_>"Matty's gone,"<quote/> she said. <quote_>"How about 
K17 110 that guy?"<quote/><p/>
K17 111 <p_><quote_>"Off for more congenial climes,"<quote/> Browne 
K17 112 said.<p/>
K17 113 <p_><quote_>"I guess he won't be sailing."<quote/><p/>
K17 114 <p_><quote_>"Too bad,"<quote/> said Browne. He began to gather up 
K17 115 his papers. There were very few show-goers about. <quote_>"It was a 
K17 116 good boat."<quote/><p/>
K17 117 <p_><quote_>"If I was Matty,"<quote/> the woman said, <quote_>"I 
K17 118 would have disappeared during the race. I'd vanish at 
K17 119 sea."<quote/><p/>
K17 120 <p_><quote_>"Guess he couldn't wait,"<quote/> Browne said.<p/>
K17 121 <p_>The dark woman looked at him with a kind of affectionate 
K17 122 insolence. He thought she must be on something.<p/>
K17 123 <p_><quote_>"Or I'd give them something to bellyache about. I'd not 
K17 124 sail around the world but say I did. Hole up in Saint Barts and let 
K17 125 the other guys sail and cross the finish line first."<quote/><p/>
K17 126 <p_><quote_>"I don't think that's possible anymore,"<quote/> Browne 
K17 127 said.<p/>
K17 128 <p_><quote_>"Matty could do it,"<quote/> the woman said.<p/>
K17 129 <p_>Browne told her good evening and went home.<p/>
K17 130 <h|>11
K17 131 <p_>NO WORD awaited Strickland in Helsinki. Hylan was not booked 
K17 132 into any of the major hotels. Since it was the weekend, he called 
K17 133 Joyce Manning at home to leave a message on her machine. No reply 
K17 134 was forthcoming. On Sunday, he arranged a meet with a local 
K17 135 cinematographer and a sound man. They met a few blocks from 
K17 136 Strickland's hotel, in a place called O'Malley's. As an earnest of 
K17 137 their seriousness, everyone ordered soda water.<p/>
K17 138 <p_>The Finns were called Holger and Pentii. They had recently 
K17 139 worked on location in Florida for a Finnish-language TV thriller; 
K17 140 they read <tf|>Variety and were conversant with the picture 
K17 141 business. Strickland explained his needs to them; he was charming 
K17 142 and hesitant and they were patient with his stammer. Once satisfied 
K17 143 with his assistants' bona fides, he became more composed. Everyone 
K17 144 relaxed and called out to the Irish girl behind the bar for Harp 
K17 145 lager. Her name was Maeve and Holger said she worked for the 
K17 146 Marxist-Leninist wing of the IRA.<p/>
K17 147 <p_>They spent the rest of the evening talking movies. Pentii was a 
K17 148 Russ Meyer fan and his favorite among the master's oeuvre was 
K17 149 <tf_>Faster Pussycat<tf/>. For Holger, who seemed the more 
K17 150 thoughtful of the two, it would always be <tf_>Heaven's Gate<tf/>. 
K17 151 When they broke up, Strickland told them to meet him in Sariola the 
K17 152 next evening. He would drive himself there in the morning for some 
K17 153 preliminary conversations with the boatyard management.<p/>
K17 154 <p_>After breakfast the following day, Strickland telephoned the 
K17 155 yard in Sariola. The man with whom he spoke was very polite but 
K17 156 cautious to the point of evasion. It was all very odd. Around 
K17 157 mid-morning, he piled his gear into a rented Saab and took off down 
K17 158 the <foreign|>autobajn for Sariola.<p/>
K17 159 <p_>The town lay deep in scented oak forests along the Gulf of 
K17 160 Finland. It was an old place, with a Swedish cathedral, cobbled 
K17 161 squares and rambling wooden houses that suggested Chekhovian 
K17 162 Russia. The air was clean and dry and the skies overhead as blue as 
K17 163 June in California. The dark woods around the town were losing 
K17 164 their winter silence but a surprising cold lurked in the groves and 
K17 165 shadows.<p/>
K17 166 <p_>At his new pastel plastic hotel, Strickland changed into 
K17 167 clothes which he hoped seafaring types might find congenial: 
K17 168 Topsiders, khaki slacks and a bulky naval sweater. Then he 
K17 169 shouldered his camera case and set off on foot for the boatyard. 
K17 170 Before he had gone a mile, he was light-headed with the sun and the 
K17 171 smell of warm evergreen, his eyes dazzled, his nose and forehead 
K17 172 reddening.<p/>
K17 173 <p_>At the sign of Lipitsa Ltd., he followed a dirt road off the 
K17 174 highway. Bird calls of a mystical complexity seemed to announce his 
K17 175 passage. He walked out into the seaside meadow in which the Lipitsa 
K17 176 yard stood to find three men waiting for him. Behind them a freshly 
K17 177 laminated boat with a sexy curved transom and a shark-fin keel lay 
K17 178 up on blocks. Beside it stood a graying, flaxen-haired man with the 
K17 179 build of an oak stump and eyes the color of wild grapes.<p/>
K17 180 <p_><quote_>"I'm Strickland,"<quote/> Strickland told him. 
K17 181 <quote_>"I've come to film."<quote/><p/>
K17 182 <p_><quote|>"Lipitsa," the man said softly. He seemed to hesitate 
K17 183 for a moment before extending his hand.<p/>
K17 184 <p_><quote_>"Is that the boat?"<quote/> Strickland asked. They 
K17 185 looked at the shiny creature in its perch.<p/>
K17 186 <p_>Lipitsa nodded.<p/>
K17 187 <p_><quote_>"I've been trying to find Mr. Hylan,"<quote/> 
K17 188 Strickland explained. <quote_>"He doesn't seem to be 
K17 189 available."<quote/><p/>
K17 190 <p_>The old man's eyes twinkled over his high cheekbones, alight 
K17 191 with boreal suspicion.<p/>
K17 192 <p_><quote_>"I was hoping to ask you about that, sir. Can you come 
K17 193 inside?"<quote/><p/>
K17 194 <p_>Lipitsa's offices were on the second floor of a converted 
K17 195 farmhouse, a solemn exercise in wood whose silent varnished spaces 
K17 196 held a churchly resonance. There was an oak desk, some ancient 
K17 197 photographs that appeared to represent the age of sail, and a long 
K17 198 line of model boats in token of the ones he had designed. 
K17 199 Strickland took a chair and faced the old man across the stern 
K17 200 surface of his desk.<p/>
K17 201 <p_><quote_>"Tell me what you want to do,"<quote/> Lipitsa said.<p/>
K17 202 <p_>Strickland explained that a documentary film had been 
K17 203 commissioned by the Hylan Corporation and that he was there to 
K17 204 shoot it.<p/>
K17 205 <p_><quote_>"Do I understand you to mean,"<quote/> old Lipitsa 
K17 206 asked him, <quote_>"that you have been paid?"<quote/><p/>
K17 207 <p_><quote_>"I've been paid a retainer. And I've been given 
K17 208 expenses."<quote/><p/>
K17 209 <p_><quote_>"And you have no idea where our Mr. Hylan has 
K17 210 gone?"<quote/><p/>
K17 211 <p_><quote_>"Absolutely none,"<quote/> Strickland said. <quote_>"I 
K17 212 didn't know he was missing."<quote/><p/>
K17 213 <p_><quote_>"You saw him when, please?"<quote/><p/>
K17 214 <p_>Strickland began but had to start over.<p/>
K17 215 <p_><quote_>"I ... I've never seen him. Now that you mention 
K17 216 it."<quote/><p/>
K17 217 <p_><quote|>"Ho," old Lipitsa said gravely. They looked at each 
K17 218 other in silence for a moment. <quote_>"I'm ahead of you,"<quote/> 
K17 219 said the Finn. <quote_>"I saw him in London two months ago. But you 
K17 220 have been paid and I have not. So there you are ahead of 
K17 221 me."<quote/><p/>
K17 222 <p_><quote|>"What," Strickland asked him, <quote_>"do you think is 
K17 223 going on?"<quote/><p/>
K17 224 <p_><quote_>"Don't think me impolite,"<quote/> Lipitsa said. 
K17 225 <quote_>"But I'm very curious and you are coming from over there. 
K17 226 What do you think?"<quote/><p/>
K17 227 <p_><quote_>"Quite honestly,"<quote/> Strickland said, <quote_>"I 
K17 228 have no idea what to think."<quote/><p/>
K17 229 <p_>Old Lipitsa passed him a copy of the <tf_>Financial Times<tf/>. 
K17 230 There was a story on the front page which reported growing concern 
K17 231 as to the whereabouts of the youthful tycoon in question. The story 
K17 232 contained, as rumor, a report that a number of grand juries in the 
K17 233 United States had also expressed interest.
K17 234 
K18   1 <#FROWN:K18\><p_>Francesca heard the out-of-tune pickup go by. She 
K18   2 lay there in bed, having slept naked for the first time as far back 
K18   3 as she could remember. She could imagine Kincaid, hair blowing in 
K18   4 the wind curling through the truck window, one hand on the wheel, 
K18   5 the other holding a Camel.<p/>
K18   6 <p_>She listened as the sound of his wheels faded toward Roseman 
K18   7 Bridge. And she began to roll words over in her mind from the Yeats 
K18   8 poem: <quote_>"I went out to the hazel wood, because a fire was in 
K18   9 my head ..."<quote/> Her rendering of it fell somewhere between 
K18  10 that of teacher and supplicant.<p/>
K18  11 <p_>He parked the truck well back from the bridge so it wouldn't 
K18  12 interfere with his compositions. From the small space behind the 
K18  13 seat, he took a knee-high pair of rubber boots, sitting on the 
K18  14 running board to unlace his leather ones and pull on the others. 
K18  15 One knapsack with straps over both shoulders, tripod slung over his 
K18  16 left shoulder by its leather strap, the other knapsack in his right 
K18  17 hand, he worked his way down the steep bank toward the stream.<p/>
K18  18 <p_>The trick would be to put the bridge at an angle for some 
K18  19 compositional tension, get a little of the stream at the same time, 
K18  20 and miss the graffiti on the walls near the entrance. The telephone 
K18  21 wires in the background were a problem, too, but that could be 
K18  22 handled through careful framing.<p/>
K18  23 <p_>He took out the Nikon loaded with Koda<?_>-<?/>chrome and 
K18  24 screwed it onto the heavy tripod. The camera had the 24-millimeter 
K18  25 lens on it, and he replaced that with his favorite 105-millimeter. 
K18  26 Gray light in the east now, and he began to experiment with his 
K18  27 composition. Move tripod two feet left, readjust legs sticking in 
K18  28 muddy ground by the stream. He kept the camera strap wound over his 
K18  29 left wrist, a practice he always followed when working around 
K18  30 water. He'd seen too many cameras go into the water when tripods 
K18  31 tipped over.<p/>
K18  32 <p_>Red color coming up, sky brightening. Lower camera six inches, 
K18  33 adjust tripod legs. Still not there. A foot more to the left. 
K18  34 Adjust legs again. Level camera on tripod head. Set lens to f/8. 
K18  35 Estimate depth of field, maximize it via hyperfocal technique. 
K18  36 Screw in cable release on shutter button. Sun 40 percent above the 
K18  37 horizon, old paint on the bridge turning a warm red, just what he 
K18  38 wanted.<p/>
K18  39 <p_>Light meter out of left breast pocket. Check it at f/8. 
K18  40 One-second exposure, but the Kodachrome would hold well for that 
K18  41 extreme. Look through the viewfinder. Fine-tune leveling of camera. 
K18  42 He pushed the plunger of the shutter release and waited for a 
K18  43 second to pass.<p/>
K18  44 <p_>Just as he fired the shutter, something caught his eye. He 
K18  45 looked through the viewfinder again. <quote_>"What the hell is 
K18  46 hanging by the entrance to the bridge?"<quote/> he muttered. 
K18  47 <quote_>"A piece of paper. Wasn't there yesterday."<quote/><p/>
K18  48 <p_>Tripod steady. Run up the bank with sun coming fast behind him. 
K18  49 Paper neatly tacked to bridge. Pull it off, put tack and paper in 
K18  50 vest pocket. Back toward the bank, down it, behind the camera. Sun 
K18  51 60 percent up.<p/>
K18  52 <p_>Breathing hard from the sprint. Shoot again. Repeat twice for 
K18  53 duplicates. No wind, grass still. Shoot three at two seconds and 
K18  54 three at one-half second for insurance.<p/>
K18  55 <p_>Click lens to f/16 setting. Repeat entire process. Carry tripod 
K18  56 and camera to the middle of the stream. Get set up, silt from 
K18  57 footsteps moving away behind. Shoot entire sequence again. New roll 
K18  58 of Kodachrome. Switch lenses. Lock on the 24-millimeter, jam the 
K18  59 105 into a pocket. Move closer to the bridge, wading upstream. 
K18  60 Adjust, level, light check, fire three, and bracket shots for 
K18  61 insurance.<p/>
K18  62 <p_>Flip the camera to vertical, recompose. Shoot again. Same 
K18  63 sequence, methodical. There never was anything clumsy about his 
K18  64 movements. All were practiced, all had a reason, the contingencies 
K18  65 were covered, efficiently and professionally.<p/>
K18  66 <p_>Up the bank, through the bridge, running with the equipment, 
K18  67 racing the sun. Now the tough one. Grab second camera with faster 
K18  68 film, sling both cameras around neck, climb tree behind bridge. 
K18  69 Scrape arm on bark- <quote|>"Dammit!" - keep climbing. High up now, 
K18  70 looking down on the bridge at an angle with the stream catching 
K18  71 sunlight.<p/>
K18  72 <p_>Use spot meter to isolate bridge roof, then shady side of 
K18  73 bridge. Take reading off water. Set camera for compromise. Shoot 
K18  74 nine shots, bracketing, camera resting on vest wedged into tree 
K18  75 crotch. Switch cameras. Faster film. Shoot a dozen more shots.<p/>
K18  76 <p_>Down the tree. Down the bank. Set up tripod, reload Kodachrome, 
K18  77 shoot composition similar to the first series only from the 
K18  78 opposite side of the stream. Pull third camera out of bag. The old 
K18  79 SP, rangefinder camera. Black-and-white work now. Light on bridge 
K18  80 changing second by second.<p/>
K18  81 <p_>After twenty intense minutes of the kind understood only by 
K18  82 soldiers, surgeons, and photographers, Robert Kincaid swung his 
K18  83 knapsacks into the truck and headed back down the road he had come 
K18  84 along before. It was fifteen minutes to Hogback Bridge northwest of 
K18  85 town, and he might just get some shots there if he hurried.<p/>
K18  86 <p_>Dust flying, Camel lit, truck bouncing, past the white frame 
K18  87 house facing north, past Richard Johnson's mailbox. No sign of her. 
K18  88 What did you expect? She's married, doing okay. You're doing okay. 
K18  89 Who needs those kinds of complications? Nice evening, nice supper, 
K18  90 nice woman. Leave it at that. God, she's lovely, though, and 
K18  91 there's something about her. Something. I have trouble taking my 
K18  92 eyes away from her.<p/>
K18  93 <p_>Francesca was in the barn doing chores when he barreled past 
K18  94 her place. Noise from the live<?_>-<?/>stock cloaked any sound from 
K18  95 the road. And Robert Kincaid headed for Hogback Bridge, racing the 
K18  96 years, chasing the light.<p/>
K18  97 <p_>Things went well at the second bridge. It sat in a valley and 
K18  98 still had mist rising around it when he arrived. The 300-millimeter 
K18  99 lens gave him a big sun in the upper-left part of his frame, with 
K18 100 the rest taking in the winding white rock road toward the bridge 
K18 101 and the bridge itself.<p/>
K18 102 <p_>Then into his viewfinder came a farmer driving a team of light 
K18 103 brown Belgians pulling a wagon along the white road. One of the 
K18 104 last of the old<?_>-<?/>style boys. Kincaid thought, grinning. He 
K18 105 knew when the good ones came by and could already see what the 
K18 106 final print would look like as he worked. On the vertical shots he 
K18 107 left some light sky where a title could go.<p/>
K18 108 <p_>When he folded up his tripod at eight thirty-five, he felt 
K18 109 good. The morning's work had some keepers. Bucolic, conservative 
K18 110 stuff, but nice and solid. The one with the farmer and horses might 
K18 111 even be a cover shot; that's why he had left the space at the top 
K18 112 of the frame, room for type, for a logo. Editors liked that kind of 
K18 113 thoughtful craftsmanship. That's why Robert Kincaid got 
K18 114 assignments.<p/>
K18 115 <p_>He had shot all or part of seven rolls of film, emptied the 
K18 116 three cameras, and reached into the lower-left pocket of his vest 
K18 117 to get the other four. <quote|>"Damn!" The thumbtack pricked his 
K18 118 index finger. He had forgotten about dropping it in the pocket when 
K18 119 he'd removed the piece of paper from Roseman Bridge. In fact, he 
K18 120 had forgotten about the piece of paper. He fished it out, opened 
K18 121 it, and read: <quote_>"If you'd like supper again when 'white moths 
K18 122 are on the wing,' come by tonight after you're finished. Anytime is 
K18 123 fine."<quote/><p/>
K18 124 <p_>He couldn't help smiling a little, imagining Francesca Johnson 
K18 125 with her note and thumbtack driving through the darkness to the 
K18 126 bridge. In five minutes he was back in town. While the Texaco man 
K18 127 filled the tank and checked the oil (<quote_>"Down half a 
K18 128 quart"<quote/>), Kincaid used the pay telephone at the station. The 
K18 129 thin phone book was grimy from being thumbed by filling station 
K18 130 hands. There were two listings under 'R. Johnson,' but one had a 
K18 131 town address.<p/>
K18 132 <p_>He dialed the rural number and waited. Francesca was feeding 
K18 133 the dog on the back porch when the phone rang in the kitchen. She 
K18 134 caught it at the front of the second ring: <quote|>"Johnson's."<p/>
K18 135 <p_><quote_>"Hi, this is Robert Kincaid."<quote/><p/>
K18 136 <p_>Her insides jumped again, just as they had yesterday. A little 
K18 137 stab of something that started in her chest and plunged to her 
K18 138 stomach.<p/>
K18 139 <p_><quote_>"Got your note. W. B. Yeats as a messenger and all 
K18 140 that. I accept the invitation, but it might be late. The weather's 
K18 141 pretty good, so I'm planning on shooting the - let's see, what's it 
K18 142 called?- the Cedar Bridge ... this evening. It could be after nine 
K18 143 before I'm finished. Then I'll want to clean up a bit. So I might 
K18 144 not be there until nine-thirty or ten. Is that all 
K18 145 right?"<quote/><p/>
K18 146 <p_>No, it wasn't all right. She didn't want to wait that long, but 
K18 147 she only said. <quote_>"Oh, sure. Get your work done; that's what's 
K18 148 important. I'll fix something that'll be easy to warm up when you 
K18 149 get here."<quote/><p/>
K18 150 <p_>Then he added, <quote_>"If you want to come along while I'm 
K18 151 shooting, that's fine. It won't bother me. I could stop by for you 
K18 152 about five-thirty."<quote/><p/>
K18 153 <p_>Francesca's mind worked the problem. She wanted to go with him. 
K18 154 But what if someone saw her? What could she say to Richard if he 
K18 155 found out?<p/>
K18 156 <p_>Cedar Bridge sat fifty yards upstream from and parallel to the 
K18 157 new road and its concrete bridge. She wouldn't be too noticeable. 
K18 158 Or would she? In less than two seconds, she decided. <quote_>"Yes, 
K18 159 I'd like that. But I'll drive my pickup and meet you there. What 
K18 160 time?"<quote/><p/>
K18 161 <p_><quote_>"About six. I'll see you then. Okay? 'Bye."<quote/><p/>
K18 162 <p_>He spent the rest of the day at the local newspaper office 
K18 163 looking through old editions. It was a pretty town, with a nice 
K18 164 courthouse square, and he sat there on a bench in the shade at 
K18 165 lunch with a small sack of fruit and some bread, along with a Coke 
K18 166 from a cafe across the street.<p/>
K18 167 <p_>When he had walked in the cafe and asked for a Coke to take 
K18 168 out, it was a little after noon. Like an old Wild West saloon when 
K18 169 the regional gun<?_>-<?/>fighter appeared, the busy conversation 
K18 170 had stopped for a moment while they all looked him over. He hated 
K18 171 that, felt self-conscious; but it was the standard procedure in 
K18 172 small towns. Someone new! Someone different! Who is he? What's he 
K18 173 doing here?<p/>
K18 174 <p_><quote_>"Somebody said he's a photographer. Said they saw him 
K18 175 out by Hogback Bridge this morning with all sorts of 
K18 176 cameras."<quote/><p/>
K18 177 <p_><quote_>"Sign on his truck says he's from Washington, out 
K18 178 west."<quote/><p/>
K18 179 <p_><quote_>"Been over to the newspaper office all morning. Jim 
K18 180 says he's looking through the papers for information on the covered 
K18 181 bridges."<quote/><p/>
K18 182 <p_><quote_>"Yeah, young Fischer at the Texaco said he stopped in 
K18 183 yesterday and asked directions to all the covered 
K18 184 bridges."<quote/><p/>
K18 185 <p_><quote_>"What's he wanna know about them for, 
K18 186 anyway?"<quote/><p/>
K18 187 <p_><quote_>"And why in the world would anybody wanna take pictures 
K18 188 of 'em? They're just all fallin' down in bad shape."<quote/><p/>
K18 189 <p_><quote_>"Sure does have long hair. Looks like one of them 
K18 190 Beatle fellows, or what is it they been callin' some of them other 
K18 191 people? Hippies, ain't that it?"<quote/> That brought laughter in 
K18 192 the back booth and to the table next to it.<p/>
K18 193 <p_>Kincaid got his Coke and left, the eyes still on him as he went 
K18 194 out the door. Maybe he'd made a mistake in inviting Francesca, for 
K18 195 her sake, not his. If someone saw her at Cedar Bridge, word would 
K18 196 hit the cafe next morning at breakfast, relayed by young Fischer at 
K18 197 the Texaco station after taking a handoff from the passerby. 
K18 198 Probably quicker than that.<p/>
K18 199 <p_>He'd learned never to underestimate the 
K18 200 tele<?_>-<?/>communicative flash of trivial news in small towns. 
K18 201 Two million children could be dying of hunger in the Sudan, and 
K18 202 that wouldn't cause a bump in consciousness,. But Richard Johnson's 
K18 203 wife seen with a long-haired stranger - now that was news! News to 
K18 204 be passed around, news to be chewed on, news that created a vague 
K18 205 carnal lapping in the minds of those who heard it, the only such 
K18 206 ripple they'd feel that year.<p/>
K18 207 <p_>He finished his lunch and walked over to the public phone on 
K18 208 the parking of the courthouse.
K18 209 
K19   1 <#FROWN:K19\><p_>Carmody had lashed a walk from the flying bridge 
K19   2 to the scow's rail instead of using the fishing boat's regular 
K19   3 walkway lower down. A plank was all it was, not quite a foot wide, 
K19   4 no ropes or railings. Billy raised his head from the stretcher 
K19   5 enough to get a look. He groaned and cursed. Greer, carrying the 
K19   6 lead end, agreed. <quote_>"Maybe we better think about this 
K19   7 ..."<quote/><p/>
K19   8 <p_><quote_>"Psht now, Emil,"<quote/> Carmody called. <quote_>"Haul 
K19   9 your old load right on across. Nothin' to it, nothin' at 
K19  10 all."<quote/><p/>
K19  11 <p_>A loud laugh snorted from the blonde at his side. <quote_>"How 
K19  12 would <tf|>you know? You haven't hauled your old load acrost it, I 
K19  13 noticed."<quote/> It was a laugh that should have been derisive, 
K19  14 but there was no derision in it. It was as sunny and good-natured 
K19  15 as her face. Ike judged her to be about fifty, perhaps older - not 
K19  16 anywhere near as old as Carmody's seventy-so, but a good decade or 
K19  17 two the senior of Alice. Yet there was something about her that was 
K19  18 still quite childlike. She had a lopsided tomboy grin that she held 
K19  19 wide open in spite of chapped lips and missing teeth, and there was 
K19  20 a bratty twinkle in her blue eyes. A twinkle at lot like Carmody's. 
K19  21 Their complexions were nearly identical - a wind-buffed and 
K19  22 sun-polished pink. They had the same corn-colored eyebrows, the 
K19  23 same pug nose. When Ike saw them side by side, grinning at the 
K19  24 spectacle of Billy the Squid being carried precariously across the 
K19  25 narrow plank, he wondered if they might not be close kin, perhaps 
K19  26 even big brother and little sister. That would explain the 
K19  27 hip-to-hip familiarity.<p/>
K19  28 <p_><quote_>"Welcome aboard, laddybucks,"<quote/> Carmody said as 
K19  29 they stepped down from the plank. <quote_>"Stow your kips and 
K19  30 secure your wounded. And step lively about if; I'm yearnin' to haul 
K19  31 anchor and catch this tide and I really mean 
K19  32 <tf|>yearnin'."<quote/><p/>
K19  33 <p_>The blonde winked. <quote_>"What the old donkey <tf|>really 
K19  34 means,"<quote/> she confided, <quote_>"is we got to hightail out of 
K19  35 here before the owner of that powerboat by the pumps yonder comes 
K19  36 down and sees the hole we bashed in his bulkhead while we was 
K19  37 gassing up. And we have <tf|>two posses on our tail."<quote/><p/>
K19  38 <p_>Carmody looked hurt. <quote_>"He should not've parked the 
K19  39 flouncy piece o' fluff so close to the pumps, the stupid 
K19  40 gob."<quote/><p/>
K19  41 <p_><quote_>"Close? I wouldn't call that so close. a container 
K19  42 barge big as a goddamn football field steamed in between that 
K19  43 sailboat and those pumps this morning, didn't ding a 
K19  44 thing."<quote/><p/>
K19  45 <p_><quote_>"I was seriously undermanned,"<quote/> Carmody 
K19  46 protested.<p/>
K19  47 <p_><quote_>"You was foolishly overconfident is what you was. Good 
K19  48 morning, boys. I'm Willimina Hardesty-"<quote/> She held out a big 
K19  49 pink hand, rough as a reef. <quote_>"I'm known as Wild Willimina 
K19  50 from Waco, but you boys may call me Willi. I'm hired on as chief 
K19  51 software officer for this ritzy high-tech tub."<quote/><p/>
K19  52 <p_><quote|>"Haw!" It was Carmody's turn to snort. 
K19  53 <quote_>"Software officer. What do you think, Ike? Would I hire a 
K19  54 software officer? Especially a software office names 
K19  55 <tf_>Hard<tf/>-assy, gnheh-heh-heh ..."<quote/><p/>
K19  56 <p_>Ike shook the hand and introduced her to his three friends. 
K19  57 Archie flushed. Greer kissed her knuckles and said something in 
K19  58 French. Billy just grunted into the metal case he had padded with 
K19  59 towels for a pillow. Archie started to explain about Mr. 
K19  60 Bellisarius' supine condition, but the woman said, oh, they knew 
K19  61 all about it - that the gang's daring and spectacular escape on the 
K19  62 runaway railcar had been the talk in all the bars <tf|>hours before 
K19  63 Isaak phoned.<p/>
K19  64 <p_><quote|>"Right!" Carmody added. <quote_>"All about it. Now put 
K19  65 him down and cast us off, we'll swap yarns later."<quote/> He 
K19  66 frowned at the two big net bags Archie was carrying. <quote_>"What 
K19  67 in the hell's all this?"<quote/><p/>
K19  68 <p_><quote_>"One's wine,"<quote/> Archie shrugged.<p/>
K19  69 <p_><quote_>"I can see that,"<quote/> Carmody said. <quote_>"A 
K19  70 reasonable cargo. but what about the other bag?"<quote/><p/>
K19  71 <p_><quote|>"Books," Archie answered.<p/>
K19  72 <p_><quote_>"I can bloody <tf|>see they're books, Culligan. what 
K19  73 did you do, enroll in one of those self-improvement 
K19  74 courses?"<quote/><p/>
K19  75 <p_><quote_>"They're the Squid's books, Mr Carmody. You know I 
K19  76 don't read. Mr Bellisarius made us check them out of the Juneau 
K19  77 Community College Library. They're scien<tf_>tific<tf/> 
K19  78 books."<quote/><p/>
K19  79 <p_><quote_>"<tf|>That's what took you so damn long? Lord love a 
K19  80 duck. Well, stash the whole shitteree somewhere out from 
K19  81 under<tf_>foot<tf/> if you please ... because, lads and lady, we 
K19  82 are about to foam straightaway home. Nels! Flip us free forward - 
K19  83 I'm firing this ritzy bitch up!"<quote/><p/>
K19  84 <p_>They foamed all right, but not straightaway home. To Isaak's 
K19  85 surprise, as soon as they were out of sight of Juneau Carmody 
K19  86 wheeled the metal prow left, south, back down the Inland Passage 
K19  87 exactly the way he'd just come. <quote_>"Evasive action, to confuse 
K19  88 the pursuers,"<quote/> he called from the flying bridge by way of 
K19  89 explanation. Then he instructed the woman to key them in a course 
K19  90 around Admiralty Island and north up Chatham Strait, which would 
K19  91 loop them back to almost the exact spot where they began their 
K19  92 so-called evasive action. When Ike mentioned this the old man 
K19  93 confided that what he really wanted to do was scope the other side 
K19  94 of Admiralty for bears on the beach, maybe pick one off with his 
K19  95 new tranque rifle. A half hour later Ike overheard him tell Greer 
K19  96 what he <tf|>really wanted to do was <quote_>"give this Texas 
K19  97 Tootsie a look at An-<tf|>goon. Three years she's been up here and 
K19  98 says she ain't yet seen an authentic Indian village."<quote/> And a 
K19  99 day later, creeping up the strait on auto at no-wake speed, 
K19 100 everybody heard him tell the Texas Tootsie herself that what he had 
K19 101 in mind was long-lining for some of the legendary sea sturgeon that 
K19 102 were supposed to prole the mud off Hoonah. That's when Ike finally 
K19 103 figured it out - that what the old dunk <tf|>actually wanted to do 
K19 104 was take just as long as he could getting home.<p/>
K19 105 <p_>This was all right with Ike. He had never been in too much of a 
K19 106 hurry to deal with Alice in any event, and he had bad feelings 
K19 107 about her prodigal son's ambitious return. This was pleasant, 
K19 108 cruising leisurely along the calm channel in a deck chair like a 
K19 109 tourist on a ten-day special, sipping wine and playing spit in the 
K19 110 ocean and scoping the shorelines. Sometimes they put away the cards 
K19 111 and trolled off the fantail with spinning rigs and flashers ... 
K19 112 they were cruising that slow. Carmody kept the choice catches to 
K19 113 eat - the occasional native coho, the rare sockeye with his neon 
K19 114 meat - and tossed the hatchies back. Or sold them over the side to 
K19 115 the little pirate processors that winked codes from every cove and 
K19 116 cranny.<p/>
K19 117 <p_>They cruised and played poker and yarned, and Carmody sang. In 
K19 118 the evenings, amid the dirty dishes in the galley, he crooned old 
K19 119 love songs, like a young swain serenading his lady. Tin Pan Alley 
K19 120 tunes, and sixties stuff, even New Age ballads. But as the nights 
K19 121 darkened and the bottles emptied, he always got back to the Old 
K19 122 World Traditional, and, at last, to his theme song: 'O, the 
K19 123 prickle<?_>-<?/>eye bush ...' It was so ever-present it began to 
K19 124 seem to Ike that it had been in his head from the moment he was 
K19 125 startled from his peaceful slumber by the cat in Kuinak.<p/>
K19 126 <p_>Naturally, at first, Ike had tried to get back into that 
K19 127 slumberous peace. It should have been easy enough; the crew was 
K19 128 certainly in a slumberous mode. Especially Greer. The chemical 
K19 129 uplift Greer had been hoping to find in Billy the Squid's briefcase 
K19 130 would not be complete until they rendezvoused with the other half 
K19 131 of the stimulant's formula in Kuinak. So Isaak's customarily 
K19 132 jacked-up partner spent most of his time below decks in a narrow 
K19 133 bunk, zeed out. Archie Culligan was no scoot-head, but he was 
K19 134 exhausted by his sojourn in Beulahland; he could usually be found 
K19 135 slumped against the water heater in the galley, snoring away. The 
K19 136 industrious young Nels Culligan tried to remain at least upright, 
K19 137 propped against the rail of the flying bridge, stifling yawns while 
K19 138 he awaited orders from the captain. But the captain was no ball of 
K19 139 fire himself. Never, in the decade they had worked together, had 
K19 140 Ike seen the old fisherman so kicked back and languid.<p/>
K19 141 <p_>The cushy new boat was part of it; the software in the Loranav 
K19 142 pilot was especially programmed for these coasts, user-easy and 
K19 143 voice-activated and in constant contact with sea and sky 
K19 144 satellites. A ten-year-old with a coastal chart and a mouse could 
K19 145 have commanded the course - <quote_>"Juneau to Kuinak at fifteen 
K19 146 knots"<quote/> - then gone back to watching his Slitman goggles. It 
K19 147 was a superb vessel, built when they were still building boats for 
K19 148 high-end diversifishing. It had probably been priced originally at 
K19 149 a mil-and-a-half or more, back before the Trident leak. Carmody had 
K19 150 picked it up for a fraction of that.<p/>
K19 151 <p_>But it was more than the new cruising vessel. The old 
K19 152 Cornishman had also picked himself up the perfect cruising 
K19 153 companion. Wild Willi from Waco might not have been as cushy and 
K19 154 modern as the new boat, but she was just as user-easy. It wasn't 
K19 155 hard to understand why Carmody had been dawdling along. This was a 
K19 156 long-deserved vacation for the old dunker, with a new playmate. 
K19 157 Everybody on board enjoyed her company, except for Billy 
K19 158 Bellisarius, who was still brooding too deeply about his recent 
K19 159 run-in with Greener to have enjoyed anybody. In the days since 
K19 160 Juneau they had found Willi to be a good worker and capable sailor, 
K19 161 plus she offered them a whole new library wing of dirty stories and 
K19 162 ribald sayings - a southern wing. The trip had been a lot of fun, a 
K19 163 lot of drinking and laughing and gambling and eating.<p/>
K19 164 <p_>Especially eating. It looked to Ike like Carmody had picked out 
K19 165 his ritzy new boat as much on the basis of its galley as on its 
K19 166 computer-sensor channel-charting fish-finding features. Maybe more. 
K19 167 The old fisherman spent a lot more time around the kitchen dials 
K19 168 than the computer dials.<p/>
K19 169 <p_><quote_>"Fish are best eaten absolutely fresh,"<quote/> Carmody 
K19 170 maintained. <quote_>"I love fresh fish, by God, right in the 
K19 171 galley. All these years busting my butt hauling the bastards in? 
K19 172 Don't seem like I remember getting to eat one really truly fresh 
K19 173 fish supper. I truly feel I have been deprived, by God I 
K19 174 do!"<quote/><p/>
K19 175 <p_>The size of the man's stomach bespoke otherwise; he had an 
K19 176 absolutely enormous midsection, round and pink and wrinkle-free as 
K19 177 his shaved ball of a head, and as hard. Carmody's girth was the 
K19 178 result of a lifetime of hard labor and good appetite, laced 
K19 179 liberally with drink and dance whenever possible. The belly he had 
K19 180 produced was the accomplishment of nearly three-quarters of a 
K19 181 century's dedicated effort; he was famous for it and proud of it. 
K19 182 He used it like a sumo wrestler uses his <tf|>kee, or center. It 
K19 183 was his workbench, his fulcrum on the booms, his block and tackle 
K19 184 on the ropes. Now, as they hummed along, he had it bellied up 
K19 185 against the round cedar table that occupied the center of the 
K19 186 galley, leaning on it while he chopped a ten-pound halibut into 
K19 187 steaks.<p/>
K19 188 <p_><quote_>"A fish don't really object to being caught and 
K19 189 consumed,"<quote/> Carmdoy was explaining, <quote_>"long as it 
K19 190 happens <tf|>fresh."<quote/><p/>
K19 191 <p_>The fish was truly fresh, the glimmer of life had not yet 
K19 192 completely left the animal's freakish eyes, and the body was still 
K19 193 quivering there on the table, though big slabs of him were already 
K19 194 hissing in butter and chopped parsley in the wavepan.<p/>
K19 195 <p_><quote_>"Fish understand the fishy facks of life. They get et. 
K19 196 It's their destiny from the get-go, from the least to the largest, 
K19 197 to get et. What a fish objects to is being wasted. 'If you need me, 
K19 198 catch me; if you don't, let me be.' Back in the days we really 
K19 199 <tf|>needed whale oil you never heard any whales complaining, did 
K19 200 ye? They knew they was greasing the wheels of progress. They didn't 
K19 201 commence complaining about it until they found out their oil had 
K19 202 become obsolete, progress<?_>-<?/>wise, and all we wanted them for 
K19 203 was food for cats. That's when they organized Greenpeace.
K19 204 
K20   1 <#FROWN:K20\><h_><p_>Rebecca's Theory<p/><h/>
K20   2 <p_>I trust water. I know my limitations in water. And I don't 
K20   3 press beyond them. My name is Clarissa; I'm twenty-five. Lately, I 
K20   4 swim a lot. Swimming toughens the vital organs: lungs and heart. A 
K20   5 swallow of air measures every stroke. When I'm underwater, I can't 
K20   6 see or hear clearly and can't smell anything. I'm humble. I'm 
K20   7 forgiving with others and myself. Maybe I'd have been better off 
K20   8 living somewhere like Cuzco, in Peru, when it was the capital of 
K20   9 the Inca. Water streamed down from the Andes and flowed in ditches 
K20  10 throughout the city. When hot, I'd have knelt under a fountain. A 
K20  11 <foreign|>vicu<*_>n-tilde<*/>a would have sipped at a trough near 
K20  12 my feet. More often, I think of another place, Atlantis. That is my 
K20  13 favorite myth. The island was rich and no doubt lush. But I imagine 
K20  14 its splendor after an earthquake sank it.<p/>
K20  15 <p_>My grandmother was afraid of the water. She never swam. Her 
K20  16 name was Rebecca Lyon, always known to us as Nanny. She was my 
K20  17 father's mother and the only grandparent I ever met. I know little 
K20  18 about my mother's past. She tells me that she lost both her parents 
K20  19 during the Second World War. She is British and her name is 
K20  20 Julia.<p/>
K20  21 <p_>My father, David, was brought up in Hidden Gorge, a small town 
K20  22 in upstate New York. His father ran a nine-hundred-square-foot 
K20  23 grocery store called The Lyon Den Mart. The family lived on top. In 
K20  24 1952, my grandfather died of a heart attack. A few months later, 
K20  25 Nanny gave my father and his sister enough money to build a 
K20  26 supermarket in Puerto Rico. At the time, the island had only small 
K20  27 grocery stores, or <foreign|>colmados. Nadia, my father's sister, 
K20  28 moved to Puerto Rico shortly after my father did. Today they have 
K20  29 several stores on the island and throughout the Caribbean: in Saint 
K20  30 John, Saint Thomas, Saint Croix, Tortola and Venezuela. They named 
K20  31 the supermarkets Isla.<p/>
K20  32 <p_>As our father puts it, my brother, my sister and I are 
K20  33 <quote|>"pampered." We've been given some money. Sometimes we 
K20  34 justify our good fortune by feeling guilty. The guilt lets us 
K20  35 pretend we're noble. Our father is sometimes noble. A friend of his 
K20  36 once said, <quote_>"Your dad is one of the few honest people left 
K20  37 on earth."<quote/> He appears to find a goodness in almost every 
K20  38 man he meets. But he's not always sociable. He likes small islands 
K20  39 where there are few people. Maybe that's his way of pretending he 
K20  40 has only himself to answer to.<p/>
K20  41 <p_>I look like my father. I'm tall and my skin is more olive than 
K20  42 white. Like him, I have a high forehead and a dimple on my left 
K20  43 cheek when I smile. He tells me I also have his poise. I keep my 
K20  44 chin high; I'm never clumsy.<p/>
K20  45 <p_>I grew up in a small suburb of Puerto Rico called Santa 
K20  46 Mar<*_>i-acute<*/>a. Our house had white gates, or <foreign|>rejas, 
K20  47 Spanish ceramic roof tiles, white plaster walls and a cupola with a 
K20  48 horse weather vane. I was born in 1955 and stayed an only child for 
K20  49 four years.<p/>
K20  50 <p_>Nanny kept me company. She visited me every week. She drove in 
K20  51 from Santurce, where she lived with her housekeeper. Nanny would 
K20  52 bounce me high on her knee. She taught me gin rummy. She'd slap 
K20  53 down cards. She'd say, I win, over and over. The day I won, she 
K20  54 accused me of cheating.<p/>
K20  55 <p_>In September 1959, Cora was born. She doesn't look like me. She 
K20  56 has blue eyes, like our father's. Otherwise, she looks like our 
K20  57 mother. She has her round face and fair skin. She is 
K20  58 small<?_>-<?/>boned.<p/>
K20  59 <p_>Michael came a year after Cora. As a baby he had straight blond 
K20  60 hair. When it turned dark brown, I remember thinking he looked a 
K20  61 lot like my brother. He grew to be six feet. But he doesn't seem 
K20  62 big. His legs, his neck, his fingers are all slender and almost 
K20  63 graceful.<p/>
K20  64 <p_>Nanny's attentions turned to Cora and Michael. So I started to 
K20  65 lie. I told my sister and brother stories of what I'd done before 
K20  66 they were born. I told them I rode an albino horse in the rain; I 
K20  67 cantered for hours. I told them I took a helicopter to a volcano 
K20  68 top in Sicily; the volcano had just erupted. I told them stories of 
K20  69 what I'd just read as if they were true. I read a lot. My mother 
K20  70 had given me reading lessons every morning since I was three. I 
K20  71 taught Cora and Michael how to read. I wanted them to look up to 
K20  72 me. Nanny taught them how to play cards.<p/>
K20  73 <p_>When I was six, my father found me a piano teacher. He was a 
K20  74 short man with a red mustache. He used to carry a stack of old 
K20  75 music sheets under his arm. He made me copy the music by hand. He 
K20  76 used to tell me, <quote_>"You're the kind of student who can't 
K20  77 become too polished. You'll lose your gut feeling for the 
K20  78 music."<quote/> We had a Pianola. When I wasn't playing, my mother 
K20  79 pedaled it. We'd all sing to 'Caravan,' 'Stella by Starlight,' 
K20  80 'Making Whoopee.' But the Pianola was eight keys short. My teacher 
K20  81 never complained. He said I practiced a lot and that was all he 
K20  82 could ask for.<p/>
K20  83 <p_>I liked the certainty of notes. They were less ambiguous than 
K20  84 words. When I made a mistake, I knew it right away. The fewer 
K20  85 mistakes I made, the more Nanny cooed. She began taking me on her 
K20  86 lap again. I played with her under me. She made Cora and Michael 
K20  87 stand next to me and listen. Nanny said I was a natural musician; I 
K20  88 was meant to be a famous pianist. But I never thought of myself as 
K20  89 gifted.<p/>
K20  90 <p_>The year Nanny turned ninety, she came to visit for a few days. 
K20  91 I was eight. My mother took us to the supermarket. Nanny frightened 
K20  92 me: she began ranting about tomatoes and lettuces tumbling out of 
K20  93 the bins. She said there were rats in the aisles poking their 
K20  94 snouts at her toes. My mother had no desire to listen to her. So 
K20  95 she drove her to my father's office. She told him to take her home. 
K20  96 Then my mother picked up our housekeeper, Rosa, and drove us all to 
K20  97 the Japanese gardens, almost an hour away.<p/>
K20  98 <p_>The gardens were in a hotel off a San Juan beach. The hotel was 
K20  99 always busy with businessmen and tourists. Cubans and Europeans 
K20 100 gambled in the casino. They sauntered on the garden paths. Cora and 
K20 101 I watched them as if to learn from their motions. My mother called 
K20 102 certain women the 'gentry.' They were pearl<?_>-<?/>skinned and had 
K20 103 black hair. Descendants, my mother said, of the 
K20 104 <tf|>conquistadores. One or two such women lived in Santa 
K20 105 Mar<*_>i-acute<*/>a. My mother knew them but thought they were too 
K20 106 proud.<p/>
K20 107 <p_>We entered the garden from the north on a path of stones laid 
K20 108 in the grass. The path snaked up a hill. On top of the hill there 
K20 109 was a pond with lily pads. A wooden gazebo with a bridge had been 
K20 110 built in the middle of the pond. The gazebo was our sanctuary. We 
K20 111 had picnics there. Then we threw bread crumbs to the garden birds. 
K20 112 Pelicans balanced on one leg; peacocks dragged their tails in the 
K20 113 grass; ducks stepped in and out of the pond. The pond streamed over 
K20 114 the south side of the hill and turned into a waterfall. Cora, 
K20 115 Michael and I used to roll down a dry part of the hill. At the 
K20 116 bottom there was an abandoned art gallery, rotting under a mango 
K20 117 tree. We used to play around the gallery.<p/>
K20 118 <p_>Mom said to Rosa, <quote_>"What a relief to escape that 
K20 119 Rebecca."<quote/> We were sitting in the gazebo. It was almost 
K20 120 five, and we'd been at the gardens since noon.<p/>
K20 121 <p_>Rosa was from Peru. She'd been with us since I was three. She'd 
K20 122 learned English for Mom. But Michael, Cora and I liked to talk to 
K20 123 her in Spanish. Her clothes smelled of garlic. Her skin smelled 
K20 124 like pine. She had a flat nose and paper-thin ears. The whites of 
K20 125 her eyes had yellow shades in them. She was showing Michael how to 
K20 126 whistle with a blade of grass. I was bent over the pond, catching 
K20 127 guppies in a paper cup. Cora sat Indian-style next to me. She wore 
K20 128 a yellow dress she'd already soiled.<p/>
K20 129 <p_><quote_>"Rosa, that woman keeps him up all night 
K20 130 sometimes,"<quote/> Mom said and lit a cigarette. <quote_>"She was 
K20 131 a wild one. She had her men. Plenty, too. She loves to tell me all 
K20 132 about them."<quote/><p/>
K20 133 <p_>Rosa said, <quote_>"Do<*_>n-tilde<*/>a Rebecca is a good woman. 
K20 134 She doesn't know what she says."<quote/><p/>
K20 135 <p_><quote_>"She knows exactly what she's saying. She told me I 
K20 136 should stop trying to have children. Imagine! Now she's begun this 
K20 137 raving. Don't underestimate her power, Rosa. That was my mistake. 
K20 138 She's a mighty one."<quote/><p/>
K20 139 <p_>Mom caught me listening and blew me a kiss. She wore her hair 
K20 140 short and behind her ears. Her hair is blond-red and her eyes are 
K20 141 green; the left one slopes down a little. When angry, she closes 
K20 142 both eyes halfway.<p/>
K20 143 <p_>She took off her hat and fanned herself with it. Even in the 
K20 144 shade Mom felt the heat. She left to call Dad. When she returned, 
K20 145 she said, <quote_>"I told your father we'd be late. I packed 
K20 146 sweaters in case it gets chilly."<quote/><p/>
K20 147 <p_>Cora leaned forward to watch the guppies writhing in the cup. 
K20 148 She said, <quote_>"Do we have to wait until dark? After dark, God 
K20 149 comes out."<quote/><p/>
K20 150 <p_>I giggled. I didn't believe in God. My father made me go to 
K20 151 Hebrew school. I skipped lessons. I never liked the quiet of 
K20 152 synagogues, the small talk after the services. Passover or Yom 
K20 153 Kippur was a chore to me. My mother is Catholic. She has, to all 
K20 154 appearances, converted. Yet when frightened or nervous, she crosses 
K20 155 herself.<p/>
K20 156 <p_><quote_>"I have some juice and cookies,"<quote/> Mom said.<p/>
K20 157 <p_><quote_>"Let's leave before it's dark,"<quote/>Cora said.<p/>
K20 158 <p_><quote_>"Have a go at more of those tadpoles."<quote/><p/>
K20 159 <p_><quote_>"Do<*_>n-tilde<*/>a Julia,"<quote/> Rosa said, 
K20 160 <quote_>"Michael hasn't had his nap."<quote/><p/>
K20 161 <p_>And Mom said, <quote_>"He'll live."<quote/><p/>
K20 162 <p_>Cora and I headed for the waterfall at the bottom of the hill. 
K20 163 We splattered our ankles in the mango pulp and mud. We looked 
K20 164 through a cracked window of the art gallery. I said, <quote_>"Look 
K20 165 at the shadows on the pedestals. Let's go in."<quote/> We'd never 
K20 166 been inside.<p/>
K20 167 <p_>Cora didn't want to. I said I'd go in myself and she changed 
K20 168 her mind. We crawled through a window. The glass was missing. There 
K20 169 were two rooms. The back one had a dirty desk in it. I sat behind 
K20 170 the desk and pretended to play Mozart.<p/>
K20 171 <p_><quote_>"Look at me,"<quote/> I heard Cora shout.<p/>
K20 172 <p_>In the other room, she'd climbed onto a pedestal. She was 
K20 173 holding her hands up. She looked like a skinny cherub. I climbed 
K20 174 onto a larger pedestal and thought there was no way a living thing 
K20 175 could look like art.<p/>
K20 176 <p_>Mom came to the window and watched us.<p/>
K20 177 <p_>When we got home, she said, <quote_>"You looked so quiet. Just 
K20 178 like statues. I couldn't disturb you."<quote/><p/>
K20 179 <p_>Standing on the pedestal made me feel composed. My mother would 
K20 180 tell me she always sees me that way. She believes people like to 
K20 181 assess our graces. I believe we ask people to judge us. Sometimes 
K20 182 we even insist.<p/>
K20 183 <p_>Michael fell asleep during dinner. Rosa carried him to his 
K20 184 room. His room was blue, with white floors and a white ceiling. His 
K20 185 bed was near the window. He could look out to the top of palm trees 
K20 186 and the sky. I liked where his room was: above Mom and Dad's and 
K20 187 between Cora's and mine. My room faced the backyard, the pool and 
K20 188 the forest that belonged to the church. We had a flamboyan tree. 
K20 189 When the tree was flowering, I didn't mind my view.<p/>
K20 190 <p_>Nanny ate slowly. She toyed with the lacy collar of her yellow 
K20 191 robe. Her face was long and smooth. Her eyes seemed to have clouds 
K20 192 in them.
K20 193 
K21   1 <#FROWN:K21\><p_>I am the Grand Inquisitor. My piercing Spanish 
K21   2 eyes are wide with righteous indignation beneath my great black 
K21   3 hood and cowl. I have the Jew in my grasp, but he refuses to 
K21   4 recant. He assaults me with his spurious Hebrew logic. My mind 
K21   5 storms at the sacrilege. I must restrain myself from wringing his 
K21   6 neck like the chicken he resembles. Instead, I survey my armory of 
K21   7 more persuasive implements and consider, with pleasure, which to 
K21   8 use on this very special day: the tongs, the thumb screw, the rack, 
K21   9 the fire. I sneeze.<p/>
K21  10 <p_>This dungeon, my domain, is raw with winter. I can hear the 
K21  11 wind rushing through the cracks between the enormous gray stones. 
K21  12 Odors of mold and putrefaction are borne along like fish in the 
K21  13 sea. Gusts find their way under my cassock, ripple my thighs like a 
K21  14 horse's flanks. My arthritic fingers clutch Ecclesiastes to my 
K21  15 chest, and I think that the Jew must suffer similar pangs without 
K21  16 similar comfort. At least I am accustomed to this spiritual 
K21  17 netherworld, while all he knows is his warm thatched cottage, homey 
K21  18 with the moist heat and smell of his grandmother's soup. Not soon 
K21  19 will he feast on beans and the blood of Christian children. Not 
K21  20 soon will he escape the benevolent clutches of the Inquisition. I 
K21  21 hold my lantern aloft to examine his fear, but when I sneeze again 
K21  22 I drop it and the flame gutters and dies.<p/>
K21  23 <p_>Despite the intense cold, I am sweating as I make my way down 
K21  24 the darkened corridor. Is it the supernatural illumination that 
K21  25 guides me through the pitch labyrinth beneath the castle which is 
K21  26 burning me up from within or merely my hatred of the Jew? A fire 
K21  27 out of control on a glacial slope, the extremes of temperature 
K21  28 wrack and contort me to their whim. Tapping this bone this way and 
K21  29 that bone that, they play upon my brittle spine like a musician. We 
K21  30 undergo the same tortures, myself and the Jew, but it is a small 
K21  31 price to pay for eternal salvation. Each howl of agony that drifts 
K21  32 through the walls is bringing some lucky soul closer to God. I envy 
K21  33 them. Then I feel it, an awesome winged presence in the corridor 
K21  34 with me. A silent, dreadful, magnificent visitation. The Holy 
K21  35 Ghost?<p/>
K21  36 <p_>From somewhere in the midnight passage comes a voice. 
K21  37 <quote_>"Who are you?"<quote/><p/>
K21  38 <p_><quote_>"Your faithful servant,"<quote/> I reply, and drop to 
K21  39 genuflect.<p/>
K21  40 <p_><quote_>"I see no servant of the God of the Cross,"<quote/> the 
K21  41 angry voice intones. <quote_>"I see only ... a Jew."<quote/><p/>
K21  42 <p_>A Jew? <quote_>"No, no, my Lord. Here,"<quote/> I tear at my 
K21  43 hood, but where the black crest was is a knitted skullcap. 
K21  44 <quote|>"Here," I rip my shirt to reveal the crucifix ever upon my 
K21  45 heart, but in place of the penitential hairshirt is a flannel 
K21  46 nightgown, and beneath it a star of David.<p/>
K21  47 <p_>What a dream, what a terrible, frightening dream! I am back in 
K21  48 my Toledo four-poster bed, Spanish lace hanging from its carved 
K21  49 mahogany peaks. My red-cassocked junior brothers surround me, 
K21  50 praying. Their voices are sweet, and far away, beneath my chamber, 
K21  51 I can make out the restful undertone of the prisoners' cries. My 
K21  52 court physician is in attendance, bending over me, peering intently 
K21  53 through his gold-rimmed spectacles, attaching a leech to suck the 
K21  54 fevered blood from my still pulsing forehead. I try to speak, but I 
K21  55 have been too exhausted by my recent ordeal. Even now it is not 
K21  56 over, and there is something wrong about these people I think I 
K21  57 know so well. They are engaged in a hushed consultation, so I only 
K21  58 hear fragments.<p/>
K21  59 <p_><quote_>"A judgment."<quote/><p/>
K21  60 <p_><quote_>"Raving since he got home."<quote/><p/>
K21  61 <p_><quote_>"... could have happened?"<quote/><p/>
K21  62 <p_>Gradually their mellifluous Iberian accents become harsher, 
K21  63 more guttural. Then their words themselves grow vague, then 
K21  64 strange.<p/>
K21  65 <p_><quote_>"On his way home from cheder."<quote/><p/>
K21  66 <p_><quote|>"Church," I rasp to correct them.<p/>
K21  67 <p_><quote_>"It was something the blacksmith's son 
K21  68 said."<quote/><p/>
K21  69 <p_><quote_>"The blackness. What the blackness said."<quote/><p/>
K21  70 <p_>But they ignore me, so I scrutinize them. I catch a whiff of 
K21  71 something fishy. My God, protect me, the court physician smells of 
K21  72 herring! He is an imposter. I try to writhe from his insidious 
K21  73 grip, but he and his aides hold me down. Sweat springs to my 
K21  74 forehead, floods into my eyes, burns them with salt. I shut them 
K21  75 against the pain and sight of the Jew.<p/>
K21  76 <p_>It is not enough to banish the vision of treachery. Words come 
K21  77 through, in Yiddish. Miraculously, I understand the infidel tongue. 
K21  78 I reopen my eyes in wonder at their magic and in order to remember 
K21  79 their faces on the day of retribution.<p/>
K21  80 <p_><quote_>"Who was the last to see him?"<quote/><p/>
K21  81 <p_>A man dressed as a schoolteacher answers, <quote_>"The students 
K21  82 all left together, but he ran ahead of the others. He often 
K21  83 does."<quote/><p/>
K21  84 <p_><quote_>"This wouldn't have happened if he were more 
K21  85 friendly."<quote/><p/>
K21  86 <p_><quote_>"So then Zevchik, the blacksmith's son, went up to him. 
K21  87 There were words, then a fight."<quote/><p/>
K21  88 <p_><quote_>"That Zevchik is a terror."<quote/><p/>
K21  89 <p_><quote|>"Nonsense," a new voice declares. <quote_>"When haven't 
K21  90 young blacksmiths beat up young Jews? Zevchik is neither better nor 
K21  91 worse than any Pole."<quote/> This speaker's face is different from 
K21  92 the others. It is less cared for but more caring. It is sensible, 
K21  93 but it is also sensitive, and despite its lowly position on a 
K21  94 straight-backed wooden chair in the corner it obviously commands a 
K21  95 great deal of respect.<p/>
K21  96 <p_>A mournful woman beside the chair sniffs, <quote_>"He shouldn't 
K21  97 fight."<quote/> Her face is soft, madonnalike, haloed by a 
K21  98 checkered handkerchief, but I will not allow myself to be seduced. 
K21  99 It smells of soap and the other domestic chores of the faithless 
K21 100 Jewish home.<p/>
K21 101 <p_>The schoolteacher continues: <quote_>"They were pulled apart, 
K21 102 and he could hardly walk. Already he was crazy. So we brought him 
K21 103 here, and he's been like this ever since."<quote/><p/>
K21 104 <p_>The physician says: <quote_>"I can find nothing drastically 
K21 105 wrong with him. There are bruises but they're minor."<quote/> He 
K21 106 pulls the engorged slug off my forehead and drops it into a glass 
K21 107 container, which he seals. <quote_>"I don't usually advocate 
K21 108 leeching, but in this case I thought there might be too much 
K21 109 pressure on the brain. It will make him weak and light-headed, 
K21 110 neither of which can hurt him more than his delirium."<quote/><p/>
K21 111 <p_>Delirium, they say! Just because I can see through their 
K21 112 pitiful masquerade they are desperate to convince me that I am mad. 
K21 113 Endangered, yes, insane, never. I have fallen into the hands of 
K21 114 Marranos, false converters, mockers of the sacrosanct baptismal 
K21 115 ceremony. Pretending to be good Spaniards, they are merely cowards 
K21 116 evading the snares of the Inquisition, secret Jews. I shall tear 
K21 117 their disguises from them, strip them bare, flay them, burn them, 
K21 118 and consecrate their ashes to the greater glory of Christ. 
K21 119 <quote|>"Jews!" I scream at them.<p/>
K21 120 <p_><quote|>"Yes," the quiet man in the corner responds.<p/>
K21 121 <p_><quote_>"Jews! Jews!"<quote/> There is no worse insult.<p/>
K21 122 <p_><quote_>"You are a Jew,"<quote/> he says.<p/>
K21 123 <p_><quote_>"That's a filthy, degenerate lie. I was born to a 
K21 124 sainted Christian woman, brought up in the household of the Lord, 
K21 125 and have taken my place as the father of his earthly ministry ... I 
K21 126 am Torquemada."<quote/><p/>
K21 127 <p_>Most everyone in the room blanches and starts back in horror. 
K21 128 They cannot help but accord the truly righteous a certain esteem. I 
K21 129 can see the effect my name has on all of them - except the one in 
K21 130 the corner. He seems saddened but not fazed. He says, <quote_>"Then 
K21 131 Torquemada is a Jew."<quote/><p/>
K21 132 <p_>I spring up and at his neck. My fingers are ten wriggling 
K21 133 snakes reaching to sink their fangs through the soft flesh.<p/>
K21 134 <p_>He does not move to defend himself. It is the other Jews who 
K21 135 subdue me and tie me to the bed.<p/>
K21 136 <p_><quote_>"A dybbuk,"<quote/> the mystic utters.<p/>
K21 137 <p_><quote_>"No, a delirium,"<quote/> the rationalist maintains.<p/>
K21 138 <p_><quote|>"Who," the woman hovering by the man in the corner 
K21 139 pleads, <quote_>"can help?"<quote/><p/>
K21 140 <p_>First it is the doctor's turn. Besides leeching me he forces me 
K21 141 to drink a vile liquid that tastes like tree bark. I feel it 
K21 142 knotting my stomach, coursing through, and purging me from within. 
K21 143 My pillow is drenched with sweat, but I will not succumb. When he 
K21 144 lays hands on me, intruding on my privacy, I must endure the 
K21 145 offense. Wrapped as securely as a baby in swaddling clothes, I have 
K21 146 only my words. <quote_>"Do you not see the error of your ways, Jew? 
K21 147 How dare you refuse to acknowledge the divinity of the one Lord 
K21 148 above?"<quote/><p/>
K21 149 <p_>As this is a matter for theology, the Rabbi steps in. He is an 
K21 150 ugly, cantankerous old goat, a pious criminal. I can smell his 
K21 151 beard and rank gabardine coat. I can smell the pungent reek of his 
K21 152 faith, like rotting moss caught in a castle wind. <quote_>"We are 
K21 153 the ones who recognize the one Lord,"<quote/> he says. <quote_>"It 
K21 154 is you that divide him into three."<quote/><p/>
K21 155 <p_><quote_>"The Trinity, most hallowed, most ineffable of 
K21 156 mysteries. One in three, three in one. You cannot 
K21 157 understand."<quote/><p/>
K21 158 <p_><quote_>"Then how can we believe?"<quote/><p/>
K21 159 <p_><quote_>"You claim to understand your Lord, Rabbi? A minor God 
K21 160 he must certainly be."<quote/><p/>
K21 161 <p_>The Rabbi steps warily about this bed that imprisons me, as if 
K21 162 afraid that I might break loose. He explains, <quote_>"No, we do 
K21 163 not understand our Lord. His ways are beyond human comprehension. 
K21 164 But we do know that he is One."<quote/><p/>
K21 165 <p_><quote_>"As is mine,"<quote/> I tell him. <quote_>"One in 
K21 166 three, three in one. A mystery greater than yours. If there are two 
K21 167 great mysteries, must not the greater be attributed to the greater 
K21 168 God?"<quote/><p/>
K21 169 <p_>The Rabbi tugs at his smelly beard, then replies, <quote_>"Then 
K21 170 why not one in five, five in one, one in a million, a million in 
K21 171 one, the greater the mystery ...."<quote/><p/>
K21 172 <p_>I have underestimated him. He has a point. Stalemate. I try 
K21 173 another tack. <quote_>"And the words of Christ on the 
K21 174 cross?"<quote/><p/>
K21 175 <p_><quote_>"Moses in the wilderness."<quote/><p/>
K21 176 <p_><quote_>"Saint Paul."<quote/><p/>
K21 177 <p_><quote|>"Elijah."<p/>
K21 178 <p_><quote_>"Pope Innocent III."<quote/><p/>
K21 179 <p_><quote_>"The Baal Shem Tov."<quote/><p/>
K21 180 <p_><quote_>"We can banter religious authorities all night, Rabbi, 
K21 181 but how can you deny the lay opinion of the citizens of the world? 
K21 182 How can you deny their choice, which has given the community of 
K21 183 Christ to be fruitful and multiply while you shrivel in this Polish 
K21 184 backwater? How can you deny history?"<quote/><p/>
K21 185 <p_><quote_>"Truth is not a matter of majority rule. How could we 
K21 186 otherwise deny the words of the ancients as to the circulation of 
K21 187 the blood, the roundness of the earth. A minority with truth on its 
K21 188 side will always prevail, must always deny."<quote/><p/>
K21 189 <p_>I am exasperated. I cannot contain myself. <quote_>"Your 
K21 190 minority is a rag-ridden, flea-bitten race of whorish, usurious, 
K21 191 inbreeding Christ-killers and should be exterminated."<quote/><p/>
K21 192 <p_>The Rabbi sighs, <quote_>"No doubt if you have anything to say 
K21 193 about it, we shall."<quote/><p/>
K21 194 <p_><quote_>"Yes, I can see such a day, and not so long from now. 
K21 195 It will be a splendid day, bathed in light and blood. There, on the 
K21 196 white shore of the eternal kingdom, the good people shall be 
K21 197 gathered. At sea, aboard a raft as large as an ark, the total 
K21 198 remains of international Jewry are tied one to the other. The 
K21 199 angels demand an end to the pestilence. I am proud to dip my torch 
K21 200 to the scattered bundles of straw, which crackle and smoke until 
K21 201 the oils of the wood and the sinews of the flesh catch fire. The 
K21 202 flames mount. The last blasphemous prayers to a pagan God are 
K21 203 drowned by the hosannas of the righteous Christian multitude as the 
K21 204 final glorious auto-da-f<*_>e-acute<*/> sinks sizzling beneath the 
K21 205 waves. Rid forever of the Jewish contagion, it shall be a day of 
K21 206 universal thanksgiving and universal belief in the one true 
K21 207 God."<quote/><p/>
K21 208 <p_>They are mute, agape before the power of my vision. Again, it 
K21 209 is only the quiet man in the corner who can summon the will to 
K21 210 speak to me. He asks, calmly, <quote_>"Are you a priest or a 
K21 211 prophet?"<quote/><p/>
K21 212 <p_>I could confound the doctor, refute the Rabbi, but this strange 
K21 213 man's soft-spoken questions are beyond my ability to scorn. I can 
K21 214 see the marks of my hands on his neck. I feel obligated to explain 
K21 215 as best I can, and I do so with surprising modesty, in a voice 
K21 216 almost like his.
K21 217 
K22   1 <#FROWN:K22\><h|><p_>MAUNDY<p/>
K22   2 <p_>A FEW days before Easter, Maggie's father found a man in a 
K22   3 sanitary lane, and took him home. All through Badminton, our 
K22   4 housing estate, sandy, stony sanitary lanes ran between the houses 
K22   5 on Edward Avenue and Henry Street and Elizabeth Crescent. They had 
K22   6 been built so that the night-soil men, coming like ghosts after 
K22   7 dark, could remove the black rubber buckets without being seen.<p/>
K22   8 <p_>Our fathers returned home from the desert war in Egypt and 
K22   9 Libya and began battling the bare veldt. Every weekend they 
K22  10 wrestled the hard, red earth into gardens. Badminton was a new 
K22  11 housing estate, built outside Johannesburg for returning soldiers. 
K22  12 Its streets were named after English kings and queens, because we 
K22  13 were English South Africans. The boxy new houses, with their 
K22  14 corrugated-iron roofs, ran down a slope to a small stream and a 
K22  15 copse of giant blue gums. Seven years after the war ended, soldiers 
K22  16 who had gone to fight against Germans had turned into gardeners in 
K22  17 uniform. My father worked in his Army boots. Gus Trupshaw wore a 
K22  18 sailor's blue shirt. Nathan Swirsky put on his leather flying 
K22  19 helmet when he took out his motorbike.<p/>
K22  20 <p_>Our fathers looked up from their zinnias, mopped their brows, 
K22  21 and said, <quote_>"It's hotter down south than it was up north, 
K22  22 make no mistake."<quote/> They cursed the African heat. They cursed 
K22  23 the stubborn shale that had to be broken up with picks, forked 
K22  24 over, sieved, spread and sweetened with rich brown earth, delivered 
K22  25 by Errol the topsoil man.<p/>
K22  26 <p_>They cursed the burglars. My mother said that there were swarms 
K22  27 of burglars hiding among the blue gum trees. They ran down the 
K22  28 sanitary lanes at night and slipped into the houses like greased 
K22  29 lightning. As I lay in bed at night, I saw the sanitary lanes 
K22  30 teeming with burglars and night-soil men, coming and going. Nobody 
K22  31 talked about the night-soil men. They came and went in our sleep, 
K22  32 though in the morning we caught the scent of something we wished to 
K22  33 forget.<p/>
K22  34 <p_>Nobody talked about Maggie, either. She lived next door and 
K22  35 took off all her clothes from time to time and ran around her 
K22  36 house. And we all pretended not to notice. She was the fastest 
K22  37 ten-year-old on the estate.<p/>
K22  38 <p_>My mother was next door in a flash when she saw the man working 
K22  39 in Maggie's garden. He wore old khaki shorts. His legs ended in 
K22  40 stumps, inches below the shorts, and the stumps were tied up in 
K22  41 sacking. He pulled himself everywhere in a red tin wagon, hauling 
K22  42 himself along with strong arms. His muscles were huge. The legless 
K22  43 man sat upon a paper bag that he had spread in the bottom of his 
K22  44 wagon. It read "Buy Your Brand-New Zephyr at Dominion Motors."<p/>
K22  45 <p_><quote_>"Hell's bells! What could I do? He just followed me 
K22  46 home,"<quote/> said Maggie's father. <quote_>"He tells me his 
K22  47 name's Salisbury."<quote/><p/>
K22  48 <p_><quote_>"I don't care if he's the King of Siam,"<quote/> my 
K22  49 mother said to my father a little while later. <quote_>"It's bad 
K22  50 enough when that little girl tears about the place in the 
K22  51 you-know-what, for all the world and his wife to stare. Now they 
K22  52 have a cripple in their garden!"<quote/><p/>
K22  53 <p_>My father was studying the annual report of the South African 
K22  54 Sugar Association. <quote_>"Figures for 1952 show exports 
K22  55 up."<quote/><p/>
K22  56 <p_><quote_>"Some of us cannot lose ourselves in sugar 
K22  57 reports,"<quote/> my mother said, <quote_>"Some of us have to look 
K22  58 life in the eye."<quote/><p/>
K22  59 <p_><quote_>"For heaven's sake, Monica,"<quote/> my father said. 
K22  60 <quote_>"The poor sod's lost his legs. I'm sure he doesn't like it 
K22  61 any more than you do. But he's still human. Well, more or 
K22  62 less."<quote/><p/>
K22  63 <p_>Then Maggie appeared, running around the side of her house. 
K22  64 <quote_>"Speak of the devil!"<quote/> my mother said. Maggie was 
K22  65 skinny and very brown. Her bare legs flashing, round and round the 
K22  66 house she ran. Her dog, a Doberman called Tamburlaine, ran after 
K22  67 her, barking loudly.<p/>
K22  68 <p_><quote|>"Martin," said my mother, <quote_>"come away from the 
K22  69 window. It only encourages her if you stare."<quote/><p/>
K22  70 <p_>Maggie's father was chasing her with a blanket. He caught up, 
K22  71 and threw it over her. Like a big gray butterfly net.<p/>
K22  72 <p_><quote_>"You'd hardly think this was Easter,"<quote/> said my 
K22  73 mother. <quote_>"I don't know where to put my face."<quote/><p/>
K22  74 <p_>Salisbury sat in his red wagon, doing some weeding. 
K22  75 <quote_>"What on earth do you think is going through his 
K22  76 head?"<quote/> my mother demanded. <quote_>"That little girl might 
K22  77 be less keen to parade in the altogether if she knew what was going 
K22  78 through his head."<quote/><p/>
K22  79 <p_><quote_>"I see that Henry's been planting out beardless 
K22  80 irises,"<quote/> said my father. <quote_>"The beardless iris loves 
K22  81 a sunny spot and a good bit of wall."<quote/><p/>
K22  82 <p_><quote_>"Heavens above, where will it all end?"<quote/> my 
K22  83 mother asked. <quote_>"Our neighbors have a cripple in their 
K22  84 garden. Easter is almost on us. There are burglars in the blue 
K22  85 gums. Soon the streets will be full of servants. Did you know that 
K22  86 they've taken to asking for Easter boxes? First Christmas boxes, 
K22  87 now Easter boxes. I suppose they'll be asking for Michaelmas boxes 
K22  88 next. Dressed to the nines, some of them. And worse for 
K22  89 wear."<quote/><p/>
K22  90 <p_>I went to bed that night and thought about the burglars down 
K22  91 among the blue gums that grew thickly across the road from the big 
K22  92 houses in Edward Avenue. All over Badminton our fathers, home from 
K22  93 the war, slept with their Army-issue pistols in their sock drawers, 
K22  94 ready at any moment to rush naked into the African night, blasting 
K22  95 away. The burglars were said to creep up on the houses and cast 
K22  96 fishing lines through the burglar bars to hook wallets and handbags 
K22  97 from our bedrooms.<p/>
K22  98 <p_>We all believed in the burglars. Everyone except for Ruthie 
K22  99 Swirsky, the chemist's new wife. But she was English, from 
K22 100 Wimbledon. Swirsky had travelled to Europe and brought her home 
K22 101 with him. <quote_>"Burglars with fishing rods,"<quote/> Ruthie 
K22 102 Swirsky said to my father just after she moved to the estate. 
K22 103 <quote_>"I've never heard of anything so absurd. Pull the other 
K22 104 one, Gordon."<quote/><p/>
K22 105 <p_><quote_>"Pull the other what?"<quote/> my mother wanted to know 
K22 106 later.<p/>
K22 107 <p_><quote_>"How would I know, Monica?"<quote/> said my father. 
K22 108 <quote_>"Leg, I suppose."<quote/><p/>
K22 109 <p_><quote_>"Whatever she had in mind, it wasn't a leg,"<quote/> 
K22 110 said my mother.<p/>
K22 111 <p_><quote_>"Whatever she had in mind, it wasn't a leg!"<quote/> 
K22 112 sang my friends Tony, Sally, and Eric, and I as we rolled down the 
K22 113 steep, grassy banks in Tony's garden that Eastertime in 
K22 114 Badminton.<p/>
K22 115 <p_>FOR the rest of the holiday, nothing much seemed likely to 
K22 116 happen. The days looming ahead were too hot somehow, even though we 
K22 117 were well into autumn. Our fathers worked in their gardens tending 
K22 118 to their petunias and phlox and chrysanthemums. They sprayed their 
K22 119 rosebushes against black spot, moving in the thick clouds of lime 
K22 120 sulfur like refugees from a gas attack in the trenches.<p/>
K22 121 <p_>Ernest Langbein had fallen in love with Maggie. Ernest was an 
K22 122 altar server at the church of the Resurrection in Cyrildene, and he 
K22 123 told Eric that if only Maggie would stop taking off her clothes, 
K22 124 their love might be possible. Maggie was not easy to get on with. 
K22 125 When she had no clothes on, she wasn't really there. And when she 
K22 126 was dressed she was inclined to make savage remarks. I met her in 
K22 127 Swirsky's Pharmacy on Maundy Thursday. She wore a blue dress with 
K22 128 thick black stockings. Her brown, pixie face was shaded by a big 
K22 129 white panama hat, tied beneath her chin with thick elastic. I was 
K22 130 wearing shorts. I'd never seen her look so covered up. She looked 
K22 131 at my bare feet and said, <quote_>"You have hammertoes, 
K22 132 Martin."<quote/> It seemed very unfair.<p/>
K22 133 <p_>We were standing behind the wall of blue magnesia bottles which 
K22 134 Swirsky built across his shop on festive occasions, like Christmas 
K22 135 and Easter. We heard Ruthie Swirsky say to Mrs. Raubenheimer of the 
K22 136 Jewish Old Age Home across the road, <quote_>"I'm collecting Maundy 
K22 137 money. It's an Easter custom we have in England. The Royal Mint 
K22 138 makes its own money, and the Queen gives it to pensioners and 
K22 139 suchlike. The deserving poor. In a special purse."<quote/><p/>
K22 140 <p_>Mrs. Raubenheimer said that those who could afford it could 
K22 141 afford it. Swirsky came around the magnesia wall and grinned at us. 
K22 142 He crackled in his starched white coat. His mustache was full and 
K22 143 yet feathery beneath his nose. Black feathers, it was. 
K22 144 <quote_>"Well, kiddies,"<quote/> he said. <quote_>"Can I count on 
K22 145 you? Pocket money is welcome for Ruthie's Maundy box. What Ruthie 
K22 146 wants she usually gets."<quote/> He rattled a black wooden 
K22 147 collection box.<p/>
K22 148 <p_>My mother said, <quote_>"It's appalling. The Swirsky's aren't 
K22 149 even Easter people. The Queen of England does not live on an estate 
K22 150 infested with burglars. Have you seen the collection box Ruthie 
K22 151 Swirsky's using? I happen to know that it belongs to St. John's 
K22 152 Ambulance. She simply turned it around so you can't see the 
K22 153 badge."<quote/><p/>
K22 154 <p_><quote_>"If you're going to divide the world into those who are 
K22 155 and those who are not Easter people."<quote/> said my father, 
K22 156 <quote_>"you may as well go and join the government. They do it all 
K22 157 the time."<quote/><p/>
K22 158 <p_><quote_>"I have no intention,"<quote/> said my mother, 
K22 159 <quote_>"of joining the government."<quote/><p/>
K22 160 <p_>All the kids gave to Ruthie Swirsky's Maundy-money box. We 
K22 161 collected empty soft-drink bottles and got back a penny deposit 
K22 162 down at the Greek Tea Room. Swirsky shook the box until our pennies 
K22 163 rattled. <quote_>"Give till it hurts,"<quote/> he said. 
K22 164 <quote_>"Baby needs new booties."<quote/><p/>
K22 165 <p_>A deputation arrived at the pharmacy. Gus Trupshaw had been 
K22 166 elected to speak for the estate. He wore his demob suit and brown 
K22 167 Army boots with well-polished toes. He said that everyone objected 
K22 168 to the idea of Ruthie's giving away money to the servants. What 
K22 169 would they expect next Easter? It might be difficult for an English 
K22 170 person to understand. But the cleaners, cooks, and gardenersof 
K22 171 Badminton got board and lodging and wages. <quote_>"They might be 
K22 172 poor,"<quote/> Gus Trupshaw explained, <quote_>"but they're not 
K22 173 deserving."<quote/><p/>
K22 174 <p_><quote_>"Are you telling me I may not give my Maundy money to 
K22 175 whomsoever I choose?"<quote/> Ruthie asked, her face white beneath 
K22 176 her red hair, <quote_>"This is outrageous."<quote/><p/>
K22 177 <p_><quote_>"This isn't Wimbledon."<quote/> said Gus Trupshaw. 
K22 178 <quote_>"When in Rome, do as the Romans do."<quote/><p/>
K22 179 <p_>Swirsky leaned over to us and whispered. <quote_>"When you're 
K22 180 next in Rome, I can recommend the Trevi fountain. But watch out for 
K22 181 pickpockets."<quote/><p/>
K22 182 <p_>Ruthie Swirsky tapped the black collection box with her finger 
K22 183 after Gus Trupshaw left. She told Swirsky she was so mad she could 
K22 184 spit. She asked him to find Errol the topsoil man. <quote_>"Tell 
K22 185 him I have a job for his wheelbarrow."<quote/><p/>
K22 186 <p_>Later, it was my mother who spotted Errol wheeling his barrow 
K22 187 into the yard next door. <quote_>"There appears to be some movement 
K22 188 at the neighbors'. I think I'll go and lie down,"<quote/> she 
K22 189 said.<p/>
K22 190 <p_> Errol stopped beside Salisbury with his wheelbarrow. He laid 
K22 191 the paper bag from Dominion Motors on the floor of the barrow and 
K22 192 lifted Salisbury out of his wagon. Then he set off up Henry Street, 
K22 193 wheeling Salisbury, with my friend Sally, her brother Tony, Eric, 
K22 194 and me tagging along behind them.<p/>
K22 195 <p_>We heard the iron wheels scattering gravel in Henry Street.<p/>
K22 196 <p_><quote_>"Where are we goings?"<quote/> Salisbury asked Errol in 
K22 197 a deep, growling voice.<p/>
K22 198 <p_><quote_>"Boss Swirsky's place. Sit still and don't make any 
K22 199 trouble."<quote/> Errol maneuvered the barrow right up to the front 
K22 200 door of Swirsky's Pharmacy. Papas, the owner of the Greek Tea Room, 
K22 201 and Mr. Benjamin, the Rug Doctor, came out of their shops to stare. 
K22 202 A couple of ladies from the Jewish Old Age Home also stopped to 
K22 203 watch. Ruthie Swirsky came out of the pharmacy. Nathan was next to 
K22 204 her. There was sun on his mustache, and it looked as if it had been 
K22 205 dipped in oil. Swirsky carried the collection box. He held it 
K22 206 carefully, as if it were a baby, and his face when he looked at 
K22 207 Ruthie was soft and loving. A crowd of cleaners, cooks, and 
K22 208 gardeners gathered across the road. They looked angry.<p_>
K22 209 <p_><quote_>"I hear you're a poor man, Salisbury,"<quote/> said 
K22 210 Ruthie. <quote_>"So I've decided to help you."<quote/><p/>
K22 211 <p_><quote_>"Yes, Madam,"<quote/> said Salisbury.<p/>
K22 212 <p_><quote_>"I hope you're not going to leave him there all day, 
K22 213 Mrs. Swirsky,"<quote/> said Mrs. Raubenheimer.<quote/>
K22 214 
K22 215 
K23   1 <#FROWN:K23\><p_><quote_>"Trash like the other trash. Pissako or 
K23   2 some other bluffer."<quote/><p/>
K23   3 <p_><quote_>"Who is this Pissako?"<quote/><p/>
K23   4 <p_>Out of somewhere materialized Reuben Kazarsky, who said, 
K23   5 <quote_>"That's what he calls Picasso."<quote/><p/>
K23   6 <p_><quote_>"What's the difference? They're all fakers,"<quote/> 
K23   7 Max Flederbush said. <quote_>"My wife, may she rest in peace, was 
K23   8 the expert, not me."<quote/><p/>
K23   9 <p_>Kazarsky winked at me and smiled. He had been my friend even 
K23  10 back in Poland. He had written a half-dozen Yiddish comedies, but 
K23  11 they had all failed. He had published a collection of vignettes, 
K23  12 but the critics had torn it to shreds and he had stopped writing. 
K23  13 He had come to America in 1939 and later had married a widow 20 
K23  14 years older than he. The widow died and Kazarsky inherited her 
K23  15 money. He hung around rich people. He dyed his hair and dressed in 
K23  16 corduroy jackets and hand-painted ties. He declared his love to 
K23  17 every woman from 15 to 75. Kazarsky was in his 60s, but he looked 
K23  18 no more than 50. He let his hair grow long and wore side whiskers. 
K23  19 His black eyes reflected the mockery and abnegation of one who has 
K23  20 broken with everything and everybody. In the cafeteria on the Lower 
K23  21 East Side, he excelled at mimicking writers, rabbis and party 
K23  22 leaders. He boasted of his talents as a sponger. Reuben Kazarsky 
K23  23 suffered from hypochondria and because he was by nature a sexual 
K23  24 philanthropist, he had convinced himself that he was impotent. We 
K23  25 were friends, but he had never introduced me to his benefactors. It 
K23  26 seemed that Max Flederbush had insisted that Reuben bring us 
K23  27 together. He now complained to me:<p/>
K23  28 <p_><quote_>"Where do you hide yourself? I've asked Reuben again 
K23  29 and again to get us together, but according to him, you were always 
K23  30 in Europe, in Israel or who knows where. All of a sudden, it comes 
K23  31 out that you're in Miami Beach. I'm in such a state that I can't be 
K23  32 alone for a minute. The moment I'm alone, I'm overcome by a gloom 
K23  33 that's worse than madness. This fine apartment you see here turns 
K23  34 suddenly into a funeral parlor. Sometimes I think that the real 
K23  35 heroes aren't those who get medals in wartime but the bachelors who 
K23  36 live out their years alone."<quote/><p/>
K23  37 <p_><quote_>"Do you have a bathroom in this palace?"<quote/> I 
K23  38 asked.<p/>
K23  39 <p_><quote_>"More than one, more than two, more than 
K23  40 three,"<quote/> Max answered. He took my arm and led me to a 
K23  41 bathroom that bedazzled me by its size and elegance. The lid of the 
K23  42 toilet seat was transparent, set with semiprecious stones and a 
K23  43 two-dollar bill implanted within it. Facing the mirror hung a 
K23  44 picture of a little boy urinating in an arc while a little girl 
K23  45 looked on admiringly. When I lifted the toilet-seat lid, music 
K23  46 began to play. After a while, I stepped out onto the balcony that 
K23  47 looked directly out to sea. The rays of the setting sun scampered 
K23  48 over the waves. Gulls still hunted for fish. Far off in the 
K23  49 distance, on the edge of the horizon, a ship swayed. On the beach, 
K23  50 I spotted some animal that from my vantage point, 16 floors high, 
K23  51 appeared like a calf or a huge dog. But it couldn't be a dog and 
K23  52 what would a calf be doing in Miami Beach? Suddenly, the shape 
K23  53 straightened up and turned out to be a woman in a long bathrobe 
K23  54 digging for clams in the sand.<p/>
K23  55 <p_>After a while, Kazarsky joined me on the balcony. He said, 
K23  56 <quote_>"That's Miami. It wasn't he but his wife who chased after 
K23  57 all these trinkets. She was the businesslady and the boss at home. 
K23  58 On the other hand, he isn't quite the idle dreamer he pretends to 
K23  59 be. He has an uncanny knack for making money. They dealt in 
K23  60 everything - buildings, lots stocks, diamonds, and eventually she 
K23  61 got involved in art, too. When he said buy, she bought; and when he 
K23  62 said sell, she sold. When she showed him a painting, he'd glance at 
K23  63 it, spit and say, <quote_>"It's junk, they'll snatch it out of your 
K23  64 hands. Buy!"<quote/> Whatever they touched turned to money. They 
K23  65 flew to Israel, established Yeshivas and donated prizes toward all 
K23  66 kinds of endeavors - cultural, religious. Naturally, they wrote it 
K23  67 all off in taxes. Their daughter, that pampered brat, was 
K23  68 half-crazy. Any complex you can find in Freud, Jung and Adler, she 
K23  69 had it. She was born in a DP camp in Germany. Her parents wanted 
K23  70 her to marry a chief rabbi or an Israeli prime minister. But she 
K23  71 fell in love with a gentile, an archaeology professor with a wife 
K23  72 and five children. His wife wouldn't divorce him and she had to be 
K23  73 bought off with a quarter<?_>-<?/>million-dollar settlement and a 
K23  74 fantastic alimony besides. Four weeks after the wedding, the 
K23  75 professor left to dig for a new Peking man. 
K23  76 <}_><-|>he<+|>He<}/>drank like a fish. It was he who was drunk, not 
K23  77 the truck driver. Come, you'll soon see something!"<quote/><p/>
K23  78 <p_>Kazarsky opened the door to the living room and it was filled 
K23  79 with people. In one day, Max Flederbush had managed to arrange a 
K23  80 party. Not all the guests could fit into the large living room. 
K23  81 Kazarsky and Max Flederbush led me from room to room and the party 
K23  82 was going on all over. Within minutes, maybe 200 people had 
K23  83 gathered, mostly women. It was a fashion show of jewelry, dresses, 
K23  84 pants, caftans, hairdos, shoes, bags, make-up, as well as men's 
K23  85 jackets, shirts and ties. Spotlights illuminated every painting. 
K23  86 Waiters served drinks. Black and white maids offered trays of hors 
K23  87 d'oeuvres.<p/>
K23  88 <p_>In all this commotion, I could scarcely hear what was being 
K23  89 said to me. The compliments started, the handshakes and the kisses. 
K23  90 A stout lady seized me around and pressed me to her enormous bosom. 
K23  91 She shouted into my ear, <quote_>"I read you! I come from the towns 
K23  92 you describe. My grandfather came here from Ishishok. He was a 
K23  93 wagon driver there and here in America, he went into the freight 
K23  94 business. If my parents wanted to say something I wouldn't 
K23  95 understand, they spoke Yiddish, and that's how I learned a little 
K23  96 of the language."<quote/><p/>
K23  97 <p_>I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My face was smeared 
K23  98 with lipstick. Even as I stood there, trying to wipe it off, I 
K23  99 received all kinds of proposals. A cantor offered to set one of my 
K23 100 stories to music. A musician demanded I adapt an opera libretto 
K23 101 from one of my novels. A president of an adult-education program 
K23 102 invited me to speak a year hence at his synagogue. I would be given 
K23 103 a plaque. A young man with hair down to his shoulders asked that I 
K23 104 recommend a publisher, or at least an agent, to him. He declared, 
K23 105 <quote_>"I <tf|>must create. This is a physical need with 
K23 106 me."<quote/><p/>
K23 107 <p_>One minute all the rooms were full, the next - all the guests 
K23 108 were gone, leaving only Reuben Kazarsky and myself. Just as quickly 
K23 109 and efficiently, the help cleaned up the leftover food and 
K23 110 half-drunk cocktails, dumped all the ashtrays and replaced all the 
K23 111 chairs in their rightful places. I had never before witnessed such 
K23 112 perfection. Out of somewhere, Max Flederbush dug out a white tie 
K23 113 with gold polka dots and put it on.<p/>
K23 114 <p_>He said, <quote_>"Time for dinner."<quote/><p/>
K23 115 <p_><quote_>"I ate so much I haven't the least appetite,"<quote/> I 
K23 116 said.<p/>
K23 117 <p_><quote_>"You must have dinner with us, I reserved a table at 
K23 118 the best restaurant in Miami."<quote/><p/>
K23 119 <p_>After a while, the three of us, Max Flederbush, Reuben Kazarsky 
K23 120 and I, got into the Cadillac and the same chauffeur drove us. Night 
K23 121 had fallen and I no longer saw nor tried to determine where I was 
K23 122 being taken. We drove for only a few minutes and pulled up in front 
K23 123 of a hotel resplendent with lights and uniformed attendants. One 
K23 124 opened the car door ceremoniously, a second fawningly opened the 
K23 125 glass front door. The lobby of this hotel wasn't merely 
K23 126 supercolossal but supersupercolossal - complete to light effects, 
K23 127 tropical plants in huge planters, vases, sculptures, a parrot in a 
K23 128 cage. We were escorted into a nearly dark hall and greeted by a 
K23 129 headwaiter who was expecting us and led us to our reserved table. 
K23 130 He bowed and scraped, seemingly overcome with joy that we had 
K23 131 arrived safely. Soon, another individual came up. Both men wore 
K23 132 tuxedos, patent-leather shoes, bow ties and ruffled shirts. They 
K23 133 looked to me like twins. They spoke with foreign accents that I 
K23 134 suspected weren't genuine. A lengthy discussion evolved concerning 
K23 135 our choice of foods and drinks. When the two heard I was a 
K23 136 vegetarian, they looked at each other in chagrin, but only for a 
K23 137 second. Soon they assured me they would serve me the best dish a 
K23 138 vegetarian had ever tasted. One took our orders and the other wrote 
K23 139 them down. Max Flederbush announced in his broken English that he 
K23 140 really wasn't hungry, but if something tempting could be dredged up 
K23 141 for him, he was prepared to give it a try. He interjected Yiddish 
K23 142 expressions, but the two waiters apparently understood him. He gave 
K23 143 precise instructions on how to roast his fish and prepare his 
K23 144 vegetables. He specified spices and seasonings. Reuben Kazarsky 
K23 145 ordered a steak and what I was to get, which in plain English was a 
K23 146 fruit salad with cottage cheese.<p/>
K23 147 <p_>When the two men finally left, Max Flederbush said, 
K23 148 <quote_>"There were times if you would have told me I'd be sitting 
K23 149 in such a place eating such food, I would have considered it a 
K23 150 joke. I had one fantasy - one time before I died to get enough dry 
K23 151 bread to fill me. Suddenly, I'm a rich man, alas, and people dance 
K23 152 attendance on me. Well, but flesh and blood isn't fated to enjoy 
K23 153 any rest. The angels in heaven are jealous, Satan is the accuser 
K23 154 and the Almighty is easily convinced. He nurses a longtime 
K23 155 resentment against us Jews. He still can't forgive the fact that 
K23 156 our great-great-grandfathers worshiped the golden calf. Let's have 
K23 157 our picture taken."<quote/><p/>
K23 158 <p_>A man with a camera materialized. <quote_>"Smile!"<quote/> he 
K23 159 ordered us.<p/>
K23 160 <p_>Max Flederbush tried to smile. One eye laughed, the other 
K23 161 cried. Reuben Kazarsky began to twinkle. I didn't even make the 
K23 162 effort. The photographer said he was going to develop the film and 
K23 163 that he'd be back in three quarters of an hour.<p/>
K23 164 <p_>Max Flederbush asked, <quote_>"What was I talking about, eh? 
K23 165 Yes. I live in apparent luxury, but a woe upon this luxury. As rich 
K23 166 and as elegant as the house is, it's also a Gehenna. I'll tell you 
K23 167 something; in a certain sense, it's worse here than in the camps. 
K23 168 There, at least, we all hoped. A hundred times a day we comforted 
K23 169 ourselves with the fact that the Hitler madness couldn't go on for 
K23 170 long. When we heard the sound of an airplane, we thought the 
K23 171 invasion had started. We were all young then and our whole lives 
K23 172 were before us. Rarely did anyone commit suicide. Here, hundreds of 
K23 173 people sit, waiting for death. A week doesn't go by that someone 
K23 174 doesn't give up the ghost. They're all rich. The men have 
K23 175 accumulated fortunes, turned worlds upside down, maybe swindled to 
K23 176 get there. Now they don't know what to do with their money. They're 
K23 177 all on diets. There is no one to dress for. Outside of the 
K23 178 financial page in the newspaper, they read nothing. As soon as they 
K23 179 finish their breakfasts, they start playing cards. Can you play 
K23 180 cards forever? They have to, or die from boredom. When they get 
K23 181 tired of playing, they start slandering one another. Bitter feuds 
K23 182 are waged. Today they elect a president, the next day they try to 
K23 183 impeach him. If he decides to move a chair in the lobby, a 
K23 184 revolution breaks out. There is one touch of consolation for them - 
K23 185 the mail. An hour before the postman is due, the lobby is crowded. 
K23 186 They stand with their keys in hand, waiting like for the Messiah. 
K23 187 If the postman is late, a hubbub erupts. If one opens his mailbox 
K23 188 and it's empty, he starts to grope and burrow inside, trying to 
K23 189 create something out of thin air.
K23 190 
K24   1 <#FROWN:K24\><p_>He heard the rabbi strike a match and it flared 
K24   2 momentarily, casting shadows of candles and chairs amid the empty 
K24   3 chairs in the room.<p/>
K24   4 <p_><quote_>"Look now in the mirror."<quote/><p/>
K24   5 <p_><quote_>"I'm looking."<quote/><p/>
K24   6 <p_><quote_>"What do you see?"<quote/><p/>
K24   7 <p_><quote|>"Nothing."<p/>
K24   8 <p_><quote_>"Look with your eyes."<quote/><p/>
K24   9 <p_>A silver candelabrum, first with three, then five, then seven 
K24  10 burning bony candlesticks, appeared like ghostly hands with flaming 
K24  11 fingertips in the oval mirror. The heat of it hit Albert in the 
K24  12 face and for a moment he was stunned.<p/>
K24  13 <p_>But recalling the games of his childhood, he thought, who's 
K24  14 kidding who? It's one of those illusion things I remember from when 
K24  15 I was a kid. In that case I'm getting the hell out of here. I can 
K24  16 stand maybe mystery but not magic tricks or dealing with a 
K24  17 rabbinical magician.<p/>
K24  18 <p_>The candelabrum had vanished, although not its light, and he 
K24  19 now saw the rabbi's somber face in the glass, his gaze addressing 
K24  20 him. Albert glanced quickly around to see of anyone was standing at 
K24  21 his shoulder, but nobody was. Where the rabbi was hiding at the 
K24  22 moment the teacher did not know; but in the lit glass appeared his 
K24  23 old man's lined and shrunken face, his sad eyes, compelling, 
K24  24 inquisitive, weary, perhaps even frightened, as though they had 
K24  25 seen more than they had cared to but were still looking.<p/>
K24  26 <p_>What's this, slides or home movies? Albert sought some source 
K24  27 of projection but saw no ray of light from wall or ceiling, nor 
K24  28 object or image that might be reflected by the mirror.<p/>
K24  29 <p_>The rabbi's eyes glowed like sun-filled clouds. A moon rose in 
K24  30 the blue sky. The teacher dared not move, afraid to discover he was 
K24  31 unable to. He then beheld a shining crown on the rabbi's head.<p/>
K24  32 <p_>It had appeared at first like a braided mother-of-pearl turban, 
K24  33 then had luminously become - like an intricate star in the night 
K24  34 sky - a silver crown, constructed of bars, triangles, half-moons 
K24  35 and crescents, spires, turrets, trees, points of spears; as though 
K24  36 a wild storm had swept them up from the earth and flung them 
K24  37 together in its vortex, twisted into a single glowing interlocked 
K24  38 sculpture, a forest of disparate objects.<p/>
K24  39 <p_>The sight in the ghostly mirror, a crown of rare beauty - very 
K24  40 impressive, Albert thought - lasted no longer than five short 
K24  41 seconds, then the reflecting glass by degrees turned dark and 
K24  42 empty.<p/>
K24  43 <p_>The shades were up. The single bulb in a frosted lily fixture 
K24  44 on the ceiling shone harshly in the room. It was night.<p/>
K24  45 <p_>The old rabbi sat, exhausted, on the broken sofa.<p/>
K24  46 <p_><quote_>"So you saw it?"<quote/><p/>
K24  47 <p_><quote_>"I saw something."<quote/><p/>
K24  48 <p_><quote_>"You believe what you saw - the crown?"<quote/><p/>
K24  49 <p_><quote_>"I believe I saw. Anyway, I'll take it."<quote/><p/>
K24  50 <p_>The rabbi gazed at him blankly.<p/>
K24  51 <p_><quote_>"I mean I agree to have the crown made,"<quote/> Albert 
K24  52 said, having to clear his throat.<p/>
K24  53 <p_><quote_>"Which size?"<quote/><p/>
K24  54 <p_><quote_>"Which size was the one I saw?"<quote/><p/>
K24  55 <p_><quote_>"Both sizes. This is the same design for both sizes, 
K24  56 but there is more silver and also more blessings for the $986 
K24  57 size."<quote/><p/>
K24  58 <p_><quote_>"But didn't you say that the design for my father's 
K24  59 crown, because of the special nature of his illness, would have a 
K24  60 different style, plus some special blessings?"<quote/><p/>
K24  61 <p_>The rabbi nodded. <quote_>"This comes also in two sizes - the 
K24  62 $401 and $986."<quote/><p/>
K24  63 <p_>The teacher hesitated a split second. <quote_>"Make it the big 
K24  64 one,"<quote/> he said decisively.<p/>
K24  65 <p_>He had his wallet in his hand and counted out fifteen new bills 
K24  66 - nine one hundreds, four twenties, a five, and a single - adding 
K24  67 to $986.<p/>
K24  68 <p_>Putting on his glasses, the rabbi hastily counted the money, 
K24  69 snapping with thumb and forefinger each crisp bill as though to be 
K24  70 sure none had stuck together. He folded the stiff paper and thrust 
K24  71 the wad into his pants pocket.<p/>
K24  72 <p_><quote_>"Could I have a receipt?"<quote/><p/>
K24  73 <p_><quote_>"I would like to give you a receipt,"<quote/> said 
K24  74 Rabbi Lifschitz earnestly, <quote_>"but for the crowns there are no 
K24  75 receipts. Some things are not a business."<quote/><p/>
K24  76 <p_><quote_>"If money is exchanged, why not?"<quote/><p/>
K24  77 <p_><quote_>"God will not allow. My father did not give receipts 
K24  78 and also my grandfather."<quote/><p/>
K24  79 <p_><quote_>"How can I prove I paid you if something goes 
K24  80 wrong?"<quote/><p/>
K24  81 <p_><quote_>"You have my word, nothing will go wrong."<quote/><p/>
K24  82 <p_><quote_>"Yes, but suppose something unforeseen did,"<quote/> 
K24  83 Albert insisted, <quote_>"would you return the cash?"<quote/><p/>
K24  84 <p_><quote_>"Here is your cash,"<quote/> said the rabbi, handing 
K24  85 the teacher the packet of folded bills.<p/>
K24  86 <p_><quote_>"Never mind,"<quote/> said Albert hastily. 
K24  87 <quote_>"Could you tell me when the crown will be 
K24  88 ready?"<quote/><p/>
K24  89 <p_><quote_>"Tomorrow night before Shabbes, the latest."<quote/><p/>
K24  90 <p_><quote_>"So soon?"<quote/><p/>
K24  91 <p_><quote_>"Your father is dying."<quote/><p/>
K24  92 <p_><quote_>"That's right, but the crown looks like a pretty 
K24  93 intricate piece of work to put together out of all those odd 
K24  94 pieces."<quote/><p/>
K24  95 <p_><quote_>"We will hurry."<quote/><p/>
K24  96 <p_><quote_>"I wouldn't want you to rush the job in any way that 
K24  97 would - let's say - prejudice the potency of the crown, or for that 
K24  98 matter, in any way impair the quality of it as I saw it in the 
K24  99 mirror - or however I saw it."<quote/><p/>
K24 100 <p_>Down came the rabbi's eyelid, quickly raised without a sign of 
K24 101 self-consciousness. <quote_>"Mr. Gans, all my crowns are 
K24 102 first-class jobs. About this you got nothing to worry 
K24 103 about."<quote/><p/>
K24 104 <p_>They then shook hands. Albert, still assailed by doubts, 
K24 105 stepped into the corridor. He felt he did not, in essence, trust 
K24 106 the rabbi; and suspected that Rabbi Lifschitz knew it and did not, 
K24 107 in essence, trust him.<p/>
K24 108 <p_>Rifkele, panting like a cow for a bull, let him out the front 
K24 109 door, perfectly.<p/>
K24 110 <p_>In the subway, Albert figured he would call it an investment in 
K24 111 experience and see what came of it. Education costs money, but how 
K24 112 else can you get it? He pictured the crown, as he had seen it, 
K24 113 established on the rabbi's head, and then seemed to remember that 
K24 114 as he had stared at the man's shifty face in the mirror the 
K24 115 thickened lid of his right eye had slowly dropped into a full wink. 
K24 116 Did he recall this in truth, or was he seeing in his mind's eye and 
K24 117 transposing into the past something that had happened just before 
K24 118 he left the house? What does he mean by his wink? - not only is he 
K24 119 a fake but he kids you? Uneasy once more, the teacher clearly 
K24 120 remembered, when he was staring into the rabbi's fish eyes in the 
K24 121 glass, after which they had lit in visionary light, that he had 
K24 122 fought a hunger to sleep; and the next thing there's the sight of 
K24 123 the old boy, as though on the television screen, wearing this 
K24 124 high-hat magic crown.<p/>
K24 125 <p_>Albert, rising, cried, <quote_>"Hypnosis! The bastard magician 
K24 126 hypnotized me! He never did produce a silver crown, it's out of my 
K24 127 imagination - I've been suckered!"<quote/><p/>
K24 128 <p_>He was outraged by the knavery, hypocrisy, fat nerve of Rabbi 
K24 129 Jonas Lifschitz. The concept of a curative crown, if he had ever 
K24 130 for a moment believed in it, crumbled in his brain and all he could 
K24 131 think of were 986 blackbirds flying in the sky. As three curious 
K24 132 passengers watched, Albert bolted out of the car at the next stop, 
K24 133 rushed up the stairs, hurried across the street, then cooled his 
K24 134 impatient heels for twenty-two minutes till the next train 
K24 135 clattered into the station, and he rode back to the stop near the 
K24 136 rabbi's house. Though he banged with both fists on the door, kicked 
K24 137 at it, 'rang' the useless bell until his thumb was blistered, the 
K24 138 boxlike wooden house, including dilapidated synagogue store, was 
K24 139 dark, monumentally starkly still, like a gigantic, slightly tilted 
K24 140 tombstone in a vast graveyard; and in the end unable to arouse a 
K24 141 soul, the teacher, long past midnight, had to head home.<p/>
K24 142 <p_>He awoke next morning cursing the rabbi and his own stupidity 
K24 143 for having got involved with a faith healer. This is what happens 
K24 144 when a man - even for a minute - surrenders his true beliefs. There 
K24 145 are less punishing ways to help the dying. Albert considered 
K24 146 calling the cops but had no receipt and did not want to appear that 
K24 147 much a fool. He was tempted, for the first time in six years of 
K24 148 teaching, to phone in sick; then take a cab to the rabbi's house 
K24 149 and demand the return of his cash. The thought agitated him. On the 
K24 150 other hand, suppose Rabbi Lifschitz was seriously at work 
K24 151 assembling the crown with his helper; on which, let's say, after he 
K24 152 had bought the silver and paid the retired jeweler for his work, he 
K24 153 made, let's say, a hundred bucks clear profit - not so very much; 
K24 154 and there really <tf|>was a silver crown, and the rabbi sincerely 
K24 155 and religiously believed it would reverse the course of his 
K24 156 father's illness? Although nervously disturbed by his suspicions, 
K24 157 Albert felt he had better not get the police into the act too soon, 
K24 158 because the crown wasn't promised - didn't the old gent say - until 
K24 159 before the Sabbath, which gave him till sunset tonight.<p/>
K24 160 <p_>If he produces the thing by then, I have no case against him 
K24 161 even if it's a piece of junk. So I better wait. But what a dope I 
K24 162 was to order the $986 job instead of the $401. On that decision 
K24 163 alone I lost $585.<p/>
K24 164 <p_>After a distracted day's work Albert taxied to the rabbi's 
K24 165 house and tried to rouse him, even hallooing at the blank windows 
K24 166 facing the street; but either nobody was home or they were both 
K24 167 hiding, the rabbi under the broken sofa, Rifkele trying to shove 
K24 168 her bulk under a bathtub. Albert decided to wait them out. Soon the 
K24 169 old boy would have to leave the house to step into the shul on 
K24 170 Friday night. He would speak to him, warn him to come clean. But 
K24 171 the sun set; dusk settled on the earth; and though the autumn stars 
K24 172 and a sliver of moon gleamed in the sky, the house was dark, shades 
K24 173 drawn; and no Rabbi Lifschitz emerged. Lights had gone on in the 
K24 174 little shul, candles were lit. It occurred to Albert, with chagrin, 
K24 175 that the rabbi might be already worshipping; he might all this time 
K24 176 have been in the synagogue.<p/>
K24 177 <p_>The teacher entered the long, brightly lit store. On yellow 
K24 178 folding chairs scattered around the room sat a dozen men holding 
K24 179 worn prayer books, praying. The Rabbi A. Marcus, a middle-aged man 
K24 180 with a high voice and a short reddish beard, was dovening at the 
K24 181 Ark, his back to the congregation.<p/>
K24 182 <p_>As Albert entered and embarrassedly searched from face to face, 
K24 183 the congregants stared at him. The old rabbi was not among them. 
K24 184 Disappointed, the teacher withdrew.<p/>
K24 185 <p_>A man sitting by the door touched his sleeve.<p/>
K24 186 <p_><quote_>"Stay awhile and read with us."<quote/><p/>
K24 187 <p_><quote_>"Excuse me, I'd like to but I'm looking for a 
K24 188 friend."<quote/><p/>
K24 189 <p_><quote|>"Look," said the man, <quote_>"maybe you'll find 
K24 190 him."<quote/><p/>
K24 191 <p_>Albert waited across the street under a chestnut tree losing 
K24 192 its leaves. He waited patiently - till tomorrow if he had to.<p/>
K24 193 <p_>Shortly after nine the lights went out in the synagogue and the 
K24 194 last of the worshippers left for home. The red-bearded rabbi then 
K24 195 emerged with his key in his hand to lock the store door.<p/>
K24 196 <p_><quote_>"Excuse me, rabbi,"<quote/> said Albert, approaching. 
K24 197 <quote_>"Are you acquainted with Rabbi Jonas Lifschitz, who lives 
K24 198 upstairs with his daughter Rifkele - if she is his 
K24 199 daughter?"<quote/><p/>
K24 200 <p_><quote_>"He used to come here,"<quote/> said the rabbi with a 
K24 201 small smile, <quote_>"but since he retired he prefers a big 
K24 202 synagogue on Mosholu Parkway, a palace."<quote/><p/>
K24 203 <p_><quote_>"Will he be home soon, do you think?"<quote/><p/>
K24 204 <p_><quote_>"Maybe in an hour. It's Shabbat, he must 
K24 205 walk."<quote/><p/>
K24 206 <p_><quote_>"Do you - ah - happen to know anything about his work 
K24 207 on silver crowns?"<quote/><p/>
K24 208 <p_><quote_>"What kind of silver crowns?"<quote/><p/>
K24 209 <p_><quote_>"To assist the sick, the dying?"<quote/><p/>
K24 210 <p_><quote|>"No," said the rabbi, locking the shul door, pocketing 
K24 211 the key, and hurrying away.<p/>
K24 212 <p_>The teacher, eating his heart, waited under the chestnut tree 
K24 213 till past midnight, all the while urging himself to give up and go 
K24 214 home, but unable to unstick the glue of his frustration and rage. 
K24 215 Then shortly before 1 <tf|>A.M. he saw some shadows moving and two 
K24 216 people drifting up the shadow-encrusted street. One was the old 
K24 217 rabbi, in a new caftan and snappy black Homburg, walking tiredly. 
K24 218 Rifkele, in sexy yellow mini, exposing to above the big-bone knees 
K24 219 her legs like poles, walked lightly behind him, stopping to strike 
K24 220 her ears with her hands.
K24 221 
K25   1 <#FROWN:K25\><h_><p_>JOHANNA KAPLAN<p/>
K25   2 <p_>Sickness<p/><h/>
K25   3 <p_>In books, radiators hum and sing; in my house, the radiator 
K25   4 howls and yelps as if a baby were locked up in it, an angry baby 
K25   5 who, though he cries and cries, still does not bring his mother 
K25   6 running. Not that she isn't longing to. But there is an older 
K25   7 neighbor around or an aunt maybe, and her philosophy is: He's 
K25   8 crying? So he'll cry! And the baby in the radiator - how can he 
K25   9 know all this? So he sends up a last, raging yowl and I am woken 
K25  10 up.<p/>
K25  11 <p_>Here, in the brief, early whitish light, the march of neighbors 
K25  12 has already begun. For even though it is barely morning of my first 
K25  13 day home from school, the news of a sick child has shuttled through 
K25  14 the building like steam through the pipes, and my mother's voice 
K25  15 rises from the kitchen in bitterness.<p/>
K25  16 <p_><quote_>"What's a doctor? He sits and sits studying long enough 
K25  17 so that finally in one place his bathrobe wears out."<quote/><p/>
K25  18 <p_>It is not a question now of tissues and aspirins, of swollen 
K25  19 glands or a throat that won't swallow. This time it is serious: 
K25  20 Lichtblau, the limping <tf|>Golem with MD on his license plate, has 
K25  21 made a housecall. Dragging one heavy foot behind the other, he has 
K25  22 announced measles and a high fever, and in a stingy mumble as dull 
K25  23 as the one that sends black years to the Irish kids on his new 
K25  24 Buick in the street, he has even mentioned the possibility of 
K25  25 hospital. But this doesn't worry me because what's a hospital? One, 
K25  26 nurses: quick-stepping, white-clad girls whose heads are all blond 
K25  27 and faces <tf_>shiksa<tf/>-silly. And two, doctors: bald, heavy 
K25  28 men, sad-eyed and Jewish, who walk slowly on dragging legs, their 
K25  29 bodies wrapped up in old maroon bathrobes, shamefully all worn away 
K25  30 in one spot.<p/>
K25  31 <p_>What would I do in a place like that? Where would I keep my 
K25  32 glass of sweet, lukewarm tea that sits, whenever I am sick, like 
K25  33 lightened liquid honey on a folding chair by my bed? Where would I 
K25  34 put all my books? Where would I get my neighbor stories? As I lie 
K25  35 back against the pillow, my room flies up before me like an airy, 
K25  36 pastel balloon. From the window, slats of sunlight sift in, 
K25  37 off-spinning ballerina twins to the clumsy elephant slats of the 
K25  38 fire escape: the sun is playing a game of potsy on the linoleum. 
K25  39 Hopping each time to a different cone of color, the sun has zoned 
K25  40 my floor so that it's a country counter of homemade, fruit-flavored 
K25  41 ice creams, or else great clean pails of paint from which I can 
K25  42 choose new, sweet, custardy colors and order the painter to paint 
K25  43 my room.<p/>
K25  44 <p_>Outside, other children's feet thump off to school. Some are 
K25  45 shouting: they just got to the corner, shoelaces dragging, and now, 
K25  46 for spite, the light is changing. And some are crying: people with 
K25  47 bad work habits, maybe they forgot their consent slips or their gym 
K25  48 suits, and because it's too late now to go back, the crying buttons 
K25  49 them into their stormcoats even tighter and their whole bodies 
K25  50 knead with what's coming. But I am inside, I am home, and sickness 
K25  51 is all pleasure.<p/>
K25  52 <p_><quote_>"Some tremendous achievement,"<quote/> my mother says, 
K25  53 and from the kitchen her voice in anger and sourness closes in on 
K25  54 itself till it's black, black as the telephone, a mother jungle - 
K25  55 steamy from her tears and sour from her breath. If she listened to 
K25  56 me, she'd be completely different, even wear nail polish, but if 
K25  57 that's what I'm looking for, she says, what I better do is go out 
K25  58 and get myself another mother. As it is, though, the one I have 
K25  59 plucks pinfeathers out of a chicken, and because her fingers get 
K25  60 clumsy and impatient instead of elegant and neat, the knife point 
K25  61 nips them so they bleed a thin, crooked trail that maps out spongy 
K25  62 yellow Chickenland: a bridge across the legs, a mountain pass to 
K25  63 the wings, and all the way back through to the interior where the 
K25  64 tiny stomach and liver lie hiding together, breathing like 
K25  65 brothers.<p/>
K25  66 <p_><quote_>"Some tremendous achievement,"<quote/> she tells 
K25  67 Birdie. <quote_>"To sit and sit and study and study and nowhere in 
K25  68 the whole process is there a head that comes into it or a brain 
K25  69 that's involved. In medical school the big expense is in 
K25  70 bathrobes."<quote/><p/>
K25  71 <p_>Birdie is puffy-brown and stuffed, the awful splendor of a 
K25  72 Florida suntan. Her voice too is bleached - thin and hard from the 
K25  73 sun and sandy from cigarettes. With aqua earrings, an orange dress 
K25  74 and two orange-painted big toes that pop out from aqua open-toe 
K25  75 shoes, Birdie is herself a sunstroke.<p/>
K25  76 <p_><quote_>"Let's face it, Manya,"<quote/> she tells my mother. 
K25  77 <quote_>"You'll never get satisfaction. A Jewish doctor is a Jewish 
K25  78 prince."<quote/><p/>
K25  79 <p_>A Jewish prince! Joseph Nasi, Joseph the prince ...<p/>
K25  80 <p_>The chamber was thick with incense and plush with silken 
K25  81 pillows. In the distance a droning voice was chanting the name of 
K25  82 Allah, summoning the faithful to prayer. But within the richly 
K25  83 adorned room not even a palm frond dared stir, for in the center, 
K25  84 seated upon the largest and most sumptuous silken pillow of them 
K25  85 all, was the Sultan himself, brocade pantaloons loose about his 
K25  86 legs and a gleaming scimitar at his waist. Behind him stood his 
K25  87 fierce, mustachioed guards, before him veiled and scented dancing 
K25  88 girls. All awaited his pleasure and command. Beneath the imperial 
K25  89 turban, however, the Sultan's heavy brow was clouded and his 
K25  90 darkened visage bespoke distress. Besides all this, he was very 
K25  91 ugly, had a fat, puffy face as if mosquitoes couldn't keep away 
K25  92 from him. With a soft rustle of silks, a graceful, veiled maiden 
K25  93 appeared before him, bearing a silver tray of sweetmeats. But 
K25  94 barely raising one languid hand, the Sultan sent her away. On hot 
K25  95 days, sweetmeats probably made him a little nauseous. A richly 
K25  96 garbed courtier bowed low before him.<p/>
K25  97 <p_><quote|>"Sire," he said, <quote_>"an emissary just arrived from 
K25  98 the mighty King of Spain urgently begs that Your Majesty receive 
K25  99 him."<quote/> But bidding him rise, the Sultan merely looked away, 
K25 100 saying, <quote_>"I shall receive no one."<quote/> A thin, hurrying 
K25 101 Vizier flung himself at the Sultan's feet crying, <quote_>"If it 
K25 102 please Your Majesty, a messenger stands at the palace gates with a 
K25 103 plea of grave import from Your Majesty's heroic general now engaged 
K25 104 with the Infidel in battle far afield."<quote/> The beetle-browed 
K25 105 Sultan sighed.<p/>
K25 106 <p_>Suddenly a great clatter was heard from without and finally 
K25 107 even the fat, sitting Sultan started getting a little curious.<p/>
K25 108 <p_><quote_>"What occasions this disturbance?"<quote/> he demanded 
K25 109 of his court.<p/>
K25 110 <p_><quote_>"It is nothing, Your Majesty,"<quote/> replied a 
K25 111 saber-bristling guardsman. <quote_>"Nothing His Highness need 
K25 112 concern himself over. It is merely a Jew."<quote/><p/>
K25 113 <p_><quote_>"A <tf|>Jew?"<quote/> cried the Sultan, hastily rising 
K25 114 from his cushions as color flooded his features. His eyes were 
K25 115 popping, too, and probably by this time there was even a vein 
K25 116 twitching somewhere. <quote_>"A Jew? <tf|>What Jew?"<quote/><p/>
K25 117 <p_><quote_>"Merely a Jewish doctor who calls himself 
K25 118 Joseph."<quote/><p/>
K25 119 <p_><quote|>"Joseph!" The Sultan cried out with great emotion. 
K25 120 <quote_>"All praises to Allah Who has sent him to me this day. 
K25 121 Bring Joseph to my presence immediately."<quote/><p/>
K25 122 <p_>Hustled in between two armor-laden guardsmen was a slight, 
K25 123 bearded man of modest dress and bearing and proud, intelligent 
K25 124 eyes.<p/>
K25 125 <p_><quote|>"Sire," he said, stepping forward, carefully lowering 
K25 126 his eyes, but not bowing his head or bending his knee, for there 
K25 127 was only One to Whom Joseph bowed. A not every other minute either 
K25 128 because he certainly wasn't Catholic.<p/>
K25 129 <p_><quote_>"O Joseph,"<quote/> the Sultan called out in great 
K25 130 agitation. <quote_>"What news do you bring me? What of my son, what 
K25 131 of my ships, and what of the terrible apparition of my nightly 
K25 132 slumbers?"<quote/><p/>
K25 133 <p_><quote_>"For your son, O great Sire, I have prepared a special 
K25 134 salve and now the lad's eye is as bright as ever it 
K25 135 was."<quote/><p/>
K25 136 <p_><quote|>"Selim," the Sultan breathed. That was his son's name 
K25 137 in Turkish.<p/>
K25 138 <p_><quote_>"Of your ships, Your Majesty. Though one was lost in a 
K25 139 storm at sea, the cargo of all the fleet has been rescued in a 
K25 140 foreign port by a friend and member of my faith, one Mannaseh ben 
K25 141 Levi. Further, he has sent a message to me with the news of a worm, 
K25 142 Your Majesty, who through his own cunning can spin silk. He offers 
K25 143 to send to your court as many of such creatures as Your Majesty 
K25 144 desires in the shipment with the lost cargo."<quote/><p/>
K25 145 <p_><quote_>"Allah be praised!"<quote/><p/>
K25 146 <p_><quote_>"Of the apparition. It was a warning to Your Majesty of 
K25 147 the storm at sea which distressed your ships. Now that the cargo is 
K25 148 safe, the dreaded apparition will trouble you no 
K25 149 longer."<quote/><p/>
K25 150 <p_><quote_>"O Joseph, physician to my body, my soul, and my 
K25 151 coffers. How shall I reward you? What is it that you 
K25 152 wish?"<quote/><p/>
K25 153 <p_><quote_>"For myself, Sire, there is nothing I desire. But for 
K25 154 my people, I ask that they may always live in peace within your 
K25 155 walls, free to pursue their daily lives and to worship, harming no 
K25 156 one, according to our age-old laws and beliefs."<quote/><p/>
K25 157 <p_><quote/>"Granted, Joseph. Most swiftly and easily granted. But 
K25 158 what of yourself? What do you ask for your own person?"<quote/><p/>
K25 159 <p_><quote_>"Only that which is granted for my people."<quote/><p/>
K25 160 <p_><quote_>"Then, Joseph, if you will not ask, I must bestow 
K25 161 unrequested. And I, His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, name you, 
K25 162 Joseph, a Prince of my Domain. No longer are you merely Joseph the 
K25 163 Jewish doctor. Henceforward you are to be known as Joseph the 
K25 164 Prince! Let cymbals sound and gongs strike!"<quote/> Right in my 
K25 165 ear: it is Birdie's Atlantic City charm bracelet sounding and 
K25 166 gonging on the Formica table.<p/>
K25 167 <p_><quote_>"Uh-tuh-tuh and look who's here!"<quote/> she says, 
K25 168 smiling at me, her lipsticked lips wide and bright as a sideways 
K25 169 orange Popsicle.<p/>
K25 170 <p_>Uh-tuh-tuh and look who's here. Yellow kindergarten clowns hop 
K25 171 all over my pajamas and red spots climb through my flesh. That's 
K25 172 who's here.<p/>
K25 173 <p_><quote|>"<tf|>Ketzeleh," says Birdie. <quote_>"Are you hungry? 
K25 174 Do you want some bread and peanut butter?"<quote/> But I'm not sure 
K25 175 what I want; my head is spinning off in a deadman's float all by 
K25 176 itself and is strange to the rest of me -luggy limbs and scratchy 
K25 177 skin.<p/>
K25 178 <p_><quote_>"Oh, Manya,"<quote/> Birdie calls to my mother. 
K25 179 <quote_>"Watch how your daughter spreads the peanut butter. I love 
K25 180 the way she does it - so perfect and so exact you'd think the knife 
K25 181 is a paintbrush. Look how she sits there with that peanut butter 
K25 182 like an artist."<quote/><p/>
K25 183 <p_><quote_>"Some artist,"<quote/> my mother says. <quote_>"She has 
K25 184 no hands, she's just like me. She couldn't even tie up a goose, my 
K25 185 father used to say about me, and that's what it is - no 
K25 186 hands."<quote/><p/>
K25 187 <p_>In the back of the <tf|>siddur, in the Song of Songs, it says: 
K25 188 What shall we do for our little sister, for she has no breasts? But 
K25 189 there is nothing in it about no hands.<p/>
K25 190 <p_><quote_>"Look how she makes it smooth and how she goes over and 
K25 191 over it. By the time she's through, it's a shame to eat 
K25 192 it."<quote/><p/>
K25 193 <p_>But my mother doesn't even bother to turn around because in her 
K25 194 opinion peanut butter and nail polish are the exact same thing: 
K25 195 both of them made up inside the head of Howdy Doody.<p/>
K25 196 <p_>Birdie has nothing against peanut butter, though. Why should 
K25 197 she? She chews gum, plays Mah-Jongg, goes to bungalow colonies and 
K25 198 eats Chinese food. Altogether she would be a cow but for one thing 
K25 199 - cows get the best boys and end up with the best husbands. And 
K25 200 this is Birdie's story: she didn't. So far did she miss in this one 
K25 201 way that even though she has been divorced for years, she still 
K25 202 cries to my mother in the kitchen that when she wakes up in the 
K25 203 morning she feels that there is no taste in her, and sometimes when 
K25 204 she stands with her shopping cart in the aisle at Daitch's, 
K25 205 everything starts to get cold, sour, and far away. Her one son, 
K25 206 Salem, is eighteen and goes to pharmacy school in Philadelphia: by 
K25 207 a coincidence, an accident, the city where his father lives.
K25 208 
K26   1 <#FROWN:K26\><h_><p_>RADON<p/>
K26   2 <p_>BY EDWARD FALCO<p/><h/>
K26   3 <p_>In the summer of '88, when my older sister turned 16 and 
K26   4 started dating a 34-year-old Amway salesman, my father discovered 
K26   5 we had unacceptable levels of radon trapped in our house. That was 
K26   6 ten years ago, though it doesn't feel like it. It was a 
K26   7 presidential election summer, and in addition to Howard, Julie's 
K26   8 new boyfriend, my mother was upset about George Bush's campaign 
K26   9 tactics, which she called Nazi-like and un-American. My father was 
K26  10 worried that Michael Dukakis might win the election and ruin the 
K26  11 economy, and he was also upset because his favorite TV preachers 
K26  12 were all in trouble - Oral Roberts said God was going to kill him 
K26  13 unless he raised four million dollars soon, Jim Bakker was being 
K26  14 revealed as a bisexual, and Jimmy Swaggart had been caught with a 
K26  15 prostitute - but most of all my father was going crazy about radon, 
K26  16 which he was convinced would give us all cancer, soon. And everyone 
K26  17 was worried about AIDS, which I heard one newscaster describe as a 
K26  18 plague that could eventually wipe out half the world's 
K26  19 population.<p/>
K26  20 <p_>Luckily, no one was worried much about me. I was 15, on the 
K26  21 baseball, football and basketball teams, an average student, and my 
K26  22 two best friends, whom I hung out with constantly, were Mary Dao 
K26  23 and Allan Freizman. Mary - a year younger than us and a grade ahead 
K26  24 of us - was the smartest girl in the district, and Allan was 
K26  25 another all-around athlete, like me. One night that summer my 
K26  26 parents were in the living room arguing. They had started out 
K26  27 discussing politics and eventually got around, as usual, to radon 
K26  28 and Julie's boyfriend. My father wanted to spend four thousand 
K26  29 dollars to seal up and ventilate the basement, and my mother wanted 
K26  30 him to do something about Howard. <quote_>"Honey,"<quote/> my 
K26  31 father said. <quote_>"Breathing the radon trapped in this house is 
K26  32 equivalent of smoking sixteen packs of cigarettes a day."<quote/> 
K26  33 <quote|>"Honey," my mother answered. <quote_>"Your 16-year-old 
K26  34 daughter is sleeping with an Amway salesman."<quote/> Upstairs, in 
K26  35 my room, I was searching my closet for a dark jacket. Mary, Allan, 
K26  36 and I were meeting at McDonald's. We were casing a house we planned 
K26  37 on robbing.<p/>
K26  38 <p_>I don't really know which one of us started the whole robbing 
K26  39 thing, but that summer was the beginning and end of it. No one in 
K26  40 the world would have ever suspected us. No one did. We must have 
K26  41 robbed a dozen houses, all told. In the beginning it was a game. 
K26  42 There's not a lot to do on Long Island, so we'd walk around, 
K26  43 through the developments. Pretty much, we'd wind up in people's 
K26  44 yards, where we'd sit and talk and drink beer and smoke grass when 
K26  45 we could get it, and we'd keep an eye on the people through their 
K26  46 windows. One night Allan brought binoculars, hoping to catch a peek 
K26  47 of someone getting undressed. We didn't. It turned out to be an old 
K26  48 lady's house where we wound up. We had a couple of joints with us 
K26  49 and Allan wanted to go hunting for a better yard, but Mary just 
K26  50 wanted to get stoned. So we compromised. We'd get stoned where we 
K26  51 were and then go looking for a better yard.<p/>
K26  52 <p_>Mary's skin looked like it was always deeply tanned, and she 
K26  53 had big eyes and black hair slicked straight back (she claimed 
K26  54 she'd rather die than wear bangs) and pulled into two little pony 
K26  55 tails that made her look pixieish, along with being so frail. But 
K26  56 God, was she smart. She spoke Vietnamese, French, and English, all 
K26  57 fluently; and she always had a book in her pocket. Half the time, 
K26  58 Allan and I didn't know what she was talking about, and she knew we 
K26  59 didn't know and went on anyway. It impressed us, and I think she 
K26  60 liked impressing us. Allan and I admired the hell out of Mary, and 
K26  61 we were both trying to get her to take off her clothes.<p/>
K26  62 <p_>That night in the old lady's yard, Mary was explaining our 
K26  63 philosophies to us. <quote|>"Rick," she said, sitting cross-legged 
K26  64 under a tree, slightly above me. She toked on a joint, held the 
K26  65 grass in, and then spoke as she exhaled, her voice high and thin. 
K26  66 <quote_>"You're a materialist,"<quote/> she said, pointing at me, 
K26  67 the joint between her fingers. <quote_>"You don't care about what 
K26  68 you can't see or feel - or maybe use. But if you can't see it or 
K26  69 feel it, man - you don't give a shit about it."<quote/><p/>
K26  70 <p_><quote_>"You mean,"<quote/> I said, <quote_>"that's like 
K26  71 because I'm always saying how I want a hot red Ferrari Testarossa 
K26  72 and a big house on the ocean."<quote/><p/>
K26  73 <p_>Allan took the joint from Mary. He said, <quote_>"You been 
K26  74 watching too much <tf_>Miami Vice<tf/>, man."<quote/><p/>
K26  75 <p_>I must have been stoned, because I remember rolling on the 
K26  76 ground laughing at that.<p/>
K26  77 <p_><quote_>"What about me,"<quote/> he asked Mary. <quote_>"What 
K26  78 am I?"<quote/><p/>
K26  79 <p_><quote_>"You, man - you're a grade A, number one, 
K26  80 no-holds-barred nihilist."<quote/><p/>
K26  81 <p_><quote_>"A what-ist?"<quote/><p/>
K26  82 <p_><quote_>"A nihilist. That means you don't believe in shit. 
K26  83 Nothing. Nada."<quote/> Mary picked up the binoculars and looked at 
K26  84 the moon.<p/>
K26  85 <p_>Allan thought for a moment, then said: <quote_>"How do you say 
K26  86 that again, what I am?"<quote/><p/>
K26  87 <p_><quote_>"A nihilist."<quote/><p/>
K26  88 <p_><quote_>"And what about you,"<quote/> I asked her. 
K26  89 <quote_>"What are you?"<quote/><p/>
K26  90 <p_><quote_>"Me?"<quote/> She handed Allan the binoculars and took 
K26  91 back the joint. <quote_>"I'm an existentialist."<quote/><p/>
K26  92 <p_>We both stared at her.<p/>
K26  93 <p_><quote_>"That's like a nihilist who's into self-delusion. Sort 
K26  94 of."<quote/><p/>
K26  95 <p_>Allan checked out the house with the binoculars. <quote|>"Hey," 
K26  96 he said. <quote_>"Look at this."<quote/><p/>
K26  97 <p_>And that's when it started. Allan had seen the old woman take 
K26  98 some money out of a bowl and put it in her handbag. A few minutes 
K26  99 later, a car pulled up the driveway and a man took her away. I 
K26 100 don't remember who said what first, or if anybody even said 
K26 101 anything - but we must have all been thinking the same thing, 
K26 102 because a few minutes later we kicked in a basement window, climbed 
K26 103 up a flight of stairs, and ran out the back door with the money. 
K26 104 Later, Mary said it was the most exciting thing she had ever done. 
K26 105 The money came to a little over 80 dollars, which we split evenly. 
K26 106 That was a couple of months earlier.<p/>
K26 107 <p_> The place we were casing - Allan spotted it driving home with 
K26 108 his dad. Allan's father's an ex-cop who owns a topless bar on 
K26 109 Jericho Turnpike. Or he did then anyway. Now I hear he's retired in 
K26 110 Florida. Allan always said he didn't hate his old man because it 
K26 111 would take too much energy. He said his father was a stupid drunk 
K26 112 who didn't care about anything but screwing the dancers who worked 
K26 113 for him. His mother he didn't know. She had left when he was a 
K26 114 child. Allan told us that she had moved to Alaska and married a 
K26 115 Husky. He said he couldn't blame her for wanting to move up in 
K26 116 life.<p/>
K26 117 <p_>The house he spotted was only a few blocks from his own. An 
K26 118 ambulance had just driven away and a police car was parked at the 
K26 119 curb. Allan's dad stopped to talk to the cop, the way he always 
K26 120 did, and Allan overheard that the man who lived there was old and 
K26 121 three-quarters dead, and kept a loaded gun in every room. At the 
K26 122 mention of the guns, Allan said he slunk down in his seat and acted 
K26 123 bored while trying to hear every word. The old man used to be 
K26 124 important - something about something in World War Two, but Allan 
K26 125 didn't get the details. Now he refused to live in a home or with 
K26 126 his children. The whole thing was too good to pass up. Guns were 
K26 127 easy money in the city: We knew a pawn shop that bought them no 
K26 128 questions asked. All we had to do was sit in the old guy's yard and 
K26 129 wait for him to leave the house.<p/>
K26 130 <p_>I couldn't find the dark jacket I was looking for, so I settled 
K26 131 for denim. In the living room, Julie had joined the argument. From 
K26 132 the top of the stairs, I could see my father sitting back in his 
K26 133 Lazy Boy like a reluctant judge, while my mother stood on one side 
K26 134 of the chair and my sister on the other.<p/>
K26 135 <p_><quote_>"I won't have this!"<quote/> my mother said, slapping 
K26 136 the arm of the chair. <quote_>"I want you,"<quote/> she said to 
K26 137 Julie, <quote_>"to bring him here tonight. And I want you,"<quote/> 
K26 138 she said to my father, <quote_>"to tell him we'll have him put in 
K26 139 jail if this doesn't stop right now."<quote/> She looked at Julie. 
K26 140 <quote_>"I won't have this,"<quote/> she repeated.<p/>
K26 141 <p_>Julie talked to Dad as if they were the only two people in the 
K26 142 room. <quote_>"This is nobody's business but mine,"<quote/> she 
K26 143 said calmly. <quote_>"I'm grown up now. I'll make my own decisions 
K26 144 and I don't need any help from anyone."<quote/><p/>
K26 145 <p_>My father had lain back and crossed his arms over his eyes, as 
K26 146 if bracing himself for a crash.<p/>
K26 147 <p_><quote|>"Dad," Julie said. <quote_>"Look at me."<quote/><p/>
K26 148 <p_>He lowered his arms. Julie's hair was bright red and shaved at 
K26 149 the temples, short over the top, and long in the back, where it was 
K26 150 dyed blond. She wore a gigantic crucifix dangling from her right 
K26 151 ear, and a "Jesus is My Friend" T-shirt that was too small on her: 
K26 152 it left a few inches of her stomach bare and her breasts struggling 
K26 153 for freedom. Her pants, she had slashed with a razor from top to 
K26 154 bottom, so from where I stood I could see she was wearing red 
K26 155 panties.<p/>
K26 156 <p_>My father said, <quote_>"I realize you're grown up now, Julie 
K26 157 -"<quote/><p/>
K26 158 <p_>My mother sighed.<p/>
K26 159 <p_><quote_>"But,"<quote/> he continued, <quote_>"Your mother has a 
K26 160 point -"<quote/><p/>
K26 161 <p_>Julie groaned.<p/>
K26 162 <p_><quote_>"Why don't we compromise,"<quote/> he said. 
K26 163 <quote_>"Bring him over, just so that we can meet him."<quote/><p/>
K26 164 <p_><quote_>"I don't want to meet him!"<quote/> my mother screamed. 
K26 165 <quote_>"I want you to shoot the son-of-a-bitch!"<quote/><p/>
K26 166 <p_><quote|>"See!" Julie yelled.<p/>
K26 167 <p_>My father jumped up, excited. <quote_>"You know!"<quote/> he 
K26 168 shouted, quieting them both. <quote_>"We didn't always used to 
K26 169 argue like this, did we?"<quote/><p/>
K26 170 <p_>I thought to myself: this was extreme, granted, but, actually, 
K26 171 yeah - they always argue like that.<p/>
K26 172 <p_><quote_>"Did we?"<quote/> my father insisted.<p/>
K26 173 <p_><quote_>"What?"<quote/> Julie said.<p/>
K26 174 <p_><quote_>"What? Radon - that's what!"<quote/><p/>
K26 175 <p_>My mother covered her face, and Julie turned her back to him. 
K26 176 They both sighed.<p/>
K26 177 <p_><quote_>"Go ahead!"<quote/> he screamed. <quote_>"Treat me like 
K26 178 I'm mad! I'm telling you, this poison we're breathing is half our 
K26 179 problem."<quote/><p/>
K26 180 <p_>For a moment, everyone was frozen: my mother with her face 
K26 181 covered; my sister looking at the wall; my father glaring at both 
K26 182 of them. Then his shoulders drooped forward, and he left the room 
K26 183 with tears brimming in his eyes. He went out into the yard.<p/>
K26 184 <p_>My sister went to her room. As she passed me, she said: 
K26 185 <quote_>"What are your staring at, jerk-off?"<quote/><p/>
K26 186 <p_>My mother looked up. When she saw me, her face brightened. I've 
K26 187 always had that effect on her, even now. She says I'm the best 
K26 188 thing in her life. <quote_>"Rick, honey,"<quote/> she said. 
K26 189 <quote_>"Come here,"<quote/><p/>
K26 190 <p_><quote_>"I'm meeting Mary,"<quote/> I said, on my way down the 
K26 191 stairs. My mother loved Mary. When she came to visit, they'd often 
K26 192 sit and talk for hours while I wandered in and out, pretending to 
K26 193 be interested. My mother never questioned what I was doing, as long 
K26 194 as I was doing it with Mary.<p/>
K26 195 <p_>By the front door, she put her arm around my shoulder. 
K26 196 <quote_>"Five minutes for your Mom,"<quote/> she said, <quote_>"I 
K26 197 need to talk to somebody sane around here."<quote/><p/>
K26 198 <p_>We sat down on the front steps, under the dim yellow light. 
K26 199 Behind us, the bug-zapper was working overtime: I can still hear 
K26 200 the pop and sizzle of bugs getting fried. <quote_>"Really, 
K26 201 Mom,"<quote/> I said. <quote_>"I've got to go in a 
K26 202 minute."<quote/><p/>
K26 203 <p_><quote_>"Did you witness all that?"<quote/> she asked. 
K26 204 <quote_>"The whole pathetic scene?"<quote/><p/>
K26 205 <p_>With me, my mother was always dramatic like that - like I'm 
K26 206 this pure thing besmirched by a dirty world. <quote_>"Maybe Dad's 
K26 207 got a point about the radon,"<quote/> I said. <quote_>"Do you know 
K26 208 what it is - radon?"<quote/><p/>
K26 209 <p_><quote|>"Yes", she said. <quote_>"It's wishful 
K26 210 thinking."<quote/><p/>
K26 211 
K27   1 <#FROWN:K27\><p_>The second thing happened that same week. I was in 
K27   2 town late in the afternoon waiting for Dud and Stack to finish some 
K27   3 business of theirs, when I looked up and saw my loony brother Bucky 
K27   4 across the street. He was standing on the courthouse lawn next to 
K27   5 where the steps came down to the sidewalk, holding his hand out, 
K27   6 palm up, to one of two men who weren't looking at him. What the men 
K27   7 were looking at was a good<?_>-<?/>sized wooden box on the ground. 
K27   8 I could see that Bucky, with his head jerking back and forth, was 
K27   9 saying something to the men, or trying to. After a minute I saw one 
K27  10 of the men and then the other one reach in their pockets and come 
K27  11 out with what had to be coins and put them in Bucky's outstretched 
K27  12 hand. After Bucky had the coins settled in his own pocket he leaned 
K27  13 down and, almost like he was a magician or something, yanked the 
K27  14 top off the box. Both men kind of jumped. They stood staring down 
K27  15 into the box, till pretty soon I could tell that one of them was 
K27  16 trying to ask Bucky questions. I knew what kind of answers he was 
K27  17 getting, the kind that made him give it up after a minute of two. 
K27  18 Then all of a sudden Bucky leaned and shut the top down quick. I 
K27  19 saw why. A man coming down the walk was just barely a step away 
K27  20 from a free look in the box.<p/>
K27  21 <p_>I know I stood there for a half hour watching Bucky take in the 
K27  22 customers, wondering what it was in the box and what kind of coins 
K27  23 he was getting for a look at it. As bad as I wanted to know, I was 
K27  24 too ashamed of Bucky to go and see. At least I was till the 
K27  25 customers quit coming and I saw the square had about cleared out 
K27  26 because it was after quitting time. I crossed the street and 
K27  27 climbed up to where Bucky stood by the box. His shirt was even more 
K27  28 ragged and dirtier than it was the last time I saw him. He rolled 
K27  29 his eyes at me and kind of smiled. <quote_>"What's in 
K27  30 there?"<quote/> I said.<p/>
K27  31 <p_>He held his hand out.<p/>
K27  32 <p_><quote_>"Your own brother?"<quote/> I said. <quote_>"I ain't 
K27  33 got any money anyhow."<quote/><p/>
K27  34 <p_>Bucky blinked and his head jerked. <quote|>"O-okay." He leaned 
K27  35 down and opened the box. I jumped, myself. It was the biggest dang 
K27  36 cottonmouth I ever saw in my life. It was as big around as a man's 
K27  37 arm and something between black and mud-colored and had a head that 
K27  38 looked like it would do for a woodcutter's wedge. <quote_>"How'd 
K27  39 you catch that thing?"<quote/><p/>
K27  40 <p_><quote_>"In m-m-my fish box."<quote/><p/>
K27  41 <p_>I looked at the ugly thing a minute more. <quote_>"How much you 
K27  42 get for a look?"<quote/><p/>
K27  43 <p_>His mouth worked, then said, <quote|>"Du-dime."<p/>
K27  44 <p_><quote_>"How much you made?"<quote/><p/>
K27  45 <p_>He patted a bulge on the hip of his overalls. Then he reached 
K27  46 in the pocket and took out a handful of coins, some of them 
K27  47 quarters, that didn't leave that bulge on his hip much smaller than 
K27  48 before. <quote|>"Damn!" I said. <quote_>"You going to get 
K27  49 rich."<quote/><p/>
K27  50 <p_>Just then Dud and Stack pulled up to the curb in Dud's old car 
K27  51 and sat staring up at Bucky's box. They had to come up for a look, 
K27  52 too, which they made Bucky give them for free, and they asked about 
K27  53 the same questions I had asked. The thing different was that Dud 
K27  54 wanted to know how much Bucky had made in all, and he wouldn't let 
K27  55 him alone till Bucky got down and laid all those coins out on the 
K27  56 walk to be counted. It came to six dollars and eighty cents, though 
K27  57 I reckoned he hadn't made it all in one day.<p/>
K27  58 <p_><quote|>"Goddamn," Dud said. <quote_>"It's money in snakes 
K27  59 ain't it? You better go catch some more. Start you a snake 
K27  60 zoo."<quote/><p/>
K27  61 <p_>It was that word <tf|>zoo that got things started. On the way 
K27  62 home Stack, after being quiet till we crossed the bridge, said, 
K27  63 <quote_>"What if we started up a zoo? I don't mean just snakes, I 
K27  64 mean all kind of wild critters. Maybe we could catch that bear, 
K27  65 even. Else her cub. Maybe a bobcat too. And a deer. And sho'ly such 
K27  66 as coons and foxes."<quote/><p/>
K27  67 <p_><quote_>"That'd be something, wouldn't it?"<quote/> I said from 
K27  68 the back seat. I was excited. Dud didn't say anything for a minute, 
K27  69 just staring at the road in front of him. I knew how Dud liked to 
K27  70 be the one to think of a thing and I was beginning to be afraid he 
K27  71 was going to say it was a dumb idea. Then I saw him nod. 
K27  72 <quote_>"Ain't one zoo in this whole county,"<quote/> he said. 
K27  73 <quote_>"People likes to look at wild animals. Like that 
K27  74 cottonmouth. We could sho catch a bunch of them."<quote/><p/>
K27  75 <p_><quote_>"Rattlers too,"<quote/> I said, leaning over the back 
K27  76 of the front seat now. <quote_>"I killed one down in the hollow 
K27  77 Sunday. Could of caught him. And copperheads too."<quote/><p/>
K27  78 <p_><quote_>"We need more than just snakes,"<quote/> Stack said. 
K27  79 <quote_>"That bear's what we really need. And a bobcat."<quote/><p/>
K27  80 <p_><quote_>"Snakes is a good starter, though,"<quote/> Dud said. 
K27  81 <quote_>"Look at Bucky. With one dang snake."<quote/><p/>
K27  82 <p_>That was how it started off and kept right on after we got in 
K27  83 the house and settled down at the supper table. After I watched 
K27  84 Coop for a minute or two I was reassured. He didn't say anything at 
K27  85 first but I could see him listening, like he was getting interested 
K27  86 in spite of himself. Daddy didn't say anything at first either, 
K27  87 just went on shoveling the food in, and I was getting uneasy for 
K27  88 fear he was going to come in against us. But that was before he got 
K27  89 it clear that Bucky was making real money off that snake.<p/>
K27  90 <p_><quote_>"And he could of got a quarter easy as a dime,"<quote/> 
K27  91 Stack said. <quote_>"He had a bunch of them; folks'd pay more than 
K27  92 that. Specially if snakes was just one part of it all."<quote/><p/>
K27  93 <p_><quote_>"We could put a sign up on the road,"<quote/> I said. 
K27  94 <quote_>"<tf_>Mosses Zoo.<tf/>"<quote/><p/>
K27  95 <p_>That was the right thing to say because, I could tell, Daddy 
K27  96 liked the idea of having his name up there on the road. I watched 
K27  97 his jaw slow down and for a space there he didn't take another 
K27  98 bite. When his jaw finally stopped all the way he said, 
K27  99 <quote_>"I'm kind of leaning to the notion it just might work. I 
K27 100 even knowed a man made money charging to look at his nervous goats. 
K27 101 Folks is like that."<quote/><p/>
K27 102 <p_>Caress and Mabel both looked at him with their mouths open and 
K27 103 then at each other. It was easy to see they hated the whole idea, 
K27 104 but it didn't matter about them. What did matter was what I could 
K27 105 see in Mama's face, in the way her shut lips made a tight straight 
K27 106 line. Then they came open. <quote_>"Where you mean to keep these 
K27 107 snakes? In the house?"<quote/><p/>
K27 108 <p_><quote_>"Make a cage for them, o'course,"<quote/> Stack said. 
K27 109 <quote_>"A good tight one."<quote/><p/>
K27 110 <p_><quote_>"What about the bear? And the wildcat?"<quote/><p/>
K27 111 <p_><quote_>"Cages too,"<quote/> Stack said. <quote_>"Make a log 
K27 112 pen for the bear, though."<quote/><p/>
K27 113 <p_><quote_>"I hate a snake,"<quote/> Mabel said, screwing up her 
K27 114 face. <quote_>"What if they get out?"<quote/><p/>
K27 115 <p_><quote_>"They'll come right for you,"<quote/> Stack said.<p/>
K27 116 <p_><quote_>"When you going to build all these pens?"<quote/> Mama 
K27 117 said to him. <quote_>"And you with a good job, for a change. You 
K27 118 going to quit?"<quote/><p/>
K27 119 <p_><quote_>"I can find the time,"<quote/> Stack said, cutting his 
K27 120 eyes away. But I could tell that was what he was aiming to do.<p/>
K27 121 <p_>Mama shook her head and drew a long breath. Then she looked up, 
K27 122 like up to heaven. <quote_>"I seen a lot of foolishness in my time, 
K27 123 but not nothing like this before. And tobacco to set and corn to 
K27 124 plant."<quote/> She looked down again, looked at Daddy who didn't 
K27 125 look back. In fast he had the expression of a man doing some hard 
K27 126 thinking. Mama said, <quote_>"I ain't having one wild animal 
K27 127 anywhere close to this house. Put them off in the woods. I ain't 
K27 128 going to get caught like poor Mrs. Noah on the ark."<quote/><p/>
K27 129 <p_>Considering all the work we knew we'd have to do, and Mama so 
K27 130 strong against it besides, it's a real wonder the whole business 
K27 131 didn't just blow on over. After a couple of days when nobody did 
K27 132 anything but talk about it and I saw Mama getting more 
K27 133 comfortable-looking all the time, I was afraid it was done for. 
K27 134 After all there wasn't a one of us who was much for hard work 
K27 135 except Coop, and he didn't get in on the talk like I wished he 
K27 136 would. How we did finally get started was another accident, kind 
K27 137 of, with Bucky the reason for it this time too. We had stopped by 
K27 138 and told him to catch some more snakes for us, but we had about 
K27 139 forgot it. Then, on Friday afternoon, he came puffing out of the 
K27 140 woods with a box bigger than the other one. It had five 
K27 141 <&|>sic!grandaddy cottonmouths in it, all knotted up together like 
K27 142 big old mud-colored ropes, the ugliest sight you ever saw. He said 
K27 143 he had found a whole nest of them where we could catch all we 
K27 144 wanted. So we had to do something with those snakes.<p/>
K27 145 <p_>Stack started right in that evening after supper. He found 
K27 146 enough wire on some banged-up chicken crates, and boards off the 
K27 147 old falling-down shed out back. He worked by a lantern on till 
K27 148 midnight, with Dud and Coop and I finally falling in to help him. 
K27 149 It turned out big enough for a man to walk around in and looked so 
K27 150 nice that when Daddy saw it in the morning, with the snakes 
K27 151 crawling around in there, he got caught up too.<p/>
K27 152 <p_>For the next couple of days, with all the banging and sawing 
K27 153 and cussing, that was the noisiest place in the county. We pretty 
K27 154 soon ran out of boards and wire and nails and stuff, and Daddy had 
K27 155 to go to town and buy everything except for some slab boards he 
K27 156 scrounged off Mr. Cutchins at the saw mill. It took more money than 
K27 157 Daddy had, but Stack was right there with his last week's 
K27 158 paycheck.<p/>
K27 159 <p_>By Sunday afternoon we had four big cages finished. With all 
K27 160 the odd-shaped slabs on them the last three didn't look as good as 
K27 161 the snake cage, but they looked strong. Daddy said they'd hold 
K27 162 anything up to the size of a bloodhound, so we could get started 
K27 163 catching coons and foxes and such. But what about the bear? I said. 
K27 164 Stack had several steel traps big enough for one and we were 
K27 165 planning on setting them out that evening down along the creek. 
K27 166 What if we caught the bear tonight? Daddy thought for a minute, 
K27 167 rolling his lips in and out. <quote_>"Th'ow ropes around her. Tie 
K27 168 her all up and drag her up here. Put her in the mules' 
K27 169 stall."<quote/><p/>
K27 170 <p_><quote_>"Ain't got no ceiling,"<quote/> I said.<quote_>"A bear 
K27 171 can climb."<quote/><p/>
K27 172 <p_><quote_>"Make one. We got some more slabs. Anyhow we ain't 
K27 173 caught her yet."<quote/><p/>
K27 174 <p_>I had some more questions - Like how would you ever get her out 
K27 175 of there? - but I let them go for the time being.<p/>
K27 176 <p_>Daddy was always quick to get enthusiastic about a new project 
K27 177 to make money, but usually he got over it in a couple of days. Not 
K27 178 this time. Every once in a while, when he should have been out in 
K27 179 the field with his mules and plow, I'd see him standing there 
K27 180 admiring those cages and those cotton<?_>-<?/>mouth snakes that, 
K27 181 for all the moving they did, might just as well have been dead. By 
K27 182 the time he got through he'd be standing up straighter than was 
K27 183 natural for him, and he'd walk away with a kind of step that made 
K27 184 me think of that big old red rooster we had. Pretty soon I could 
K27 185 tell what was going on in his head.
K27 186 
K28   1 <#FROWN:K28\><h_><p_>Green Grow the Grasses O<p/>
K28   2 <p_>D. R. MacDonald<p/><h/>
K28   3 <p_>A suspicion had come down that Kenneth Munro was using dope in 
K28   4 the house he rented above the road. <quote_>"Harboring 
K28   5 drugs"<quote/> was the way Millie Patterson put it.<p/>
K28   6 <p_><quote_>"I don't think he's that kind,"<quote/> Fiona Cameron 
K28   7 said, in whose parlor Mr. Munro was being discussed. She had seen 
K28   8 him coming and going, a thirtyish man with dark gray hair nearly to 
K28   9 his shoulders. It was the only extravagant thing about him, how the 
K28  10 wind would gust it across his eyes. He had left St. Aubin as a tot 
K28  11 and returned suddenly now for reasons unclear.<p/>
K28  12 <p_><quote_>"Drinking's one thing,"<quote/> Millie said. 
K28  13 <quote_>"But <tf|>this."<quote/><p/>
K28  14 <p_><quote_>"This what?"<quote/> Fiona said. She was curious about 
K28  15 him too, but in a different way. And Kenneth Munro, after all, was 
K28  16 not just any outsider. His family was long gone but still 
K28  17 remembered.<p/>
K28  18 <p_>After some coaxing, Lloyd David, Millie's son, described how 
K28  19 Munro's kitchen had been full of the smell the day he'd dropped by 
K28  20 to cut the high wild grass out front. <quote_>"There's no other 
K28  21 smell like it,"<quote/> he said.<p/>
K28  22 <p_>This expertise got him a hot glance from his mother. Millie 
K28  23 missed no opportunity to point up the evils of drugs.<p/>
K28  24 <p_><quote_>"But Millie,"<quote/> Fiona said, <quote_>"a smell in 
K28  25 his kitchen is hardly criminal."<quote/><p/>
K28  26 <p_><quote_>"Fiona dear, you have no idea."<quote/> Millie, a nurse 
K28  27 for twenty-six years, recalled with horror a young man the Mounties 
K28  28 brought into the emergency ward last winter: <quote_>"In that 
K28  29 weather, crawling down the highway in his undershorts, barking like 
K28  30 a dog."<quote/> Lloyd David chuckled, then caught himself. 
K28  31 <quote_>"He was that cold,"<quote/> Millie went on, <quote_>"he was 
K28  32 blue."<quote/> She paused. <quote_>"Marijuana."<quote/> But the 
K28  33 word came out of her mouth erotically rounded somehow, lush and 
K28  34 foreign.<p/>
K28  35 <p_><quote_>"But we hardly know Kenneth Munro,"<quote/> Fiona said. 
K28  36 She knew he often stood shirtless on his little front porch late in 
K28  37 the morning, stretching his limbs. He'd just got up, it was plain 
K28  38 to see. He was brown from the sun, though he'd brought the brown 
K28  39 with him. Fiona could not imagine him crawling along a highway or 
K28  40 barking either. What she could imagine she was not likely to admit. 
K28  41 She was from the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides but had lived 
K28  42 in Cape Breton all her married life, nearly twenty years. Her eyes 
K28  43 were an unusual pale green, peppered with colors you couldn't pin 
K28  44 down, and they looked merry even when she was not. no, Millie would 
K28  45 not easily let go of this matter. Kenneth Munro. And drugs. They 
K28  46 had come to Cape Breton like everywhere else, and of course people 
K28  47 saw on TV what drugs out there in the world could do. Marijuana? 
K28  48 Just a hair's breadth from heroin, in Millie's eyes, whereas 
K28  49 alcohol was as familiar as the weather. hadn't there been a nasty 
K28  50 murder over in Sydney where two kids on drags stabbed an old man 
K28  51 for his money? That shook everyone, murder being rare among Cape 
K28  52 Bretoners, despite a reputation for lesser violence. Fiona glance 
K28  53 out the front window: she hadn't seen Munro all day. His bedroom 
K28  54 window was flung high and the curtains, green as June grass, 
K28  55 whipped in the wind.<p/>
K28  56 <p_><quote_>"He's got a telescope in the backyard,"<quote/> Lloyd 
K28  57 David said.<p/>
K28  58 <p_><quote_>"What's he up to?"<quote/> Millie said.<p/>
K28  59 <p_><quote_>"Well, that's the point."<quote/> Fiona took a sip of 
K28  60 tea. It was cool. <quote_>"We can't say."<quote/><p/>
K28  61 <p_><quote_>"He seems like a nice fella."<quote/> Harald, Fiona's 
K28  62 husband, had come in from haying and stood stout and perspiring in 
K28  63 his overalls. <quote_>"Fiona's right,"<quote/> he said from the 
K28  64 doorway. <quote_>"Yesterday he was asking me about the 
K28  65 bobolinks."<quote/><p/>
K28  66 <p_><quote_>"About the <tf|>what?"<quote/> Millie said.<p/>
K28  67 <p_><quote_>"Birds, Ma. Tweet tweet?"<quote/><p/>
K28  68 <p_>She glared at her son: she hated his Oakland Raiders T-shirt 
K28  69 with the insolent pirate face on the front.<p/>
K28  70 <p_><quote_>"Well,"<quote/> Fiona said. <quote_>"He's just over the 
K28  71 road. We'll have to find out about him. Harald, won't 
K28  72 we?"<quote/><p/>
K28  73 <p_><quote_>"You be the detective, girl."<quote/><p/>
K28  74 <p_>At a table by the west window of the Sealladh Na Mara 
K28  75 Restaurant Kenneth Munro took in the postcard view. Whatever he saw 
K28  76 he measured against the descriptions his father had given him years 
K28  77 ago. He could see a good portion of goose Cove and the mountain 
K28  78 behind it whose profile darkened the water this time of the 
K28  79 afternoon, calming the bay. Terns squabbled on a sandy bar. The 
K28  80 waitress, whom he fancied and who, he felt, was ready for a move, 
K28  81 came up behind him, her slender figure reflected in the glass. In 
K28  82 her unflattering uniform- a bland aqua, the hem too long- she 
K28  83 seemed all the more pretty. She'd worn her find brown hair 
K28  84 unfashionably long down her back when he had seen her walking along 
K28  85 the road, but now it was clasped in a bun.<p/>
K28  86 <p_><quote_>"Ginny, suppose I was to take you to dinner some night 
K28  87 soon? In Sydney?"<quote/><p/>
K28  88 <p_><quote_>"Oh, I don't know. You're older than I am, by more than 
K28  89 a bit."<quote/> Ginny had graduated from McGill this summer and was 
K28  90 back home, pondering her future. She loved the country she'd grown 
K28  91 up but knew she would work in a big city before long.<p/>
K28  92 <p_><quote_>"I can't deny it,"<quote/> Munro said. <quote_>"I'm up 
K28  93 in years. I expect your parents wouldn't approve."<quote/><p/>
K28  94 <p_><quote_>"No. No, they wouldn't much. And they've always known 
K28  95 just about everything I've done around here."<quote/> She looked 
K28  96 over at two elderly women picking daintily at their lobster salads. 
K28  97 <quote_>"There's no need they should keep on knowing."<quote/><p/>
K28  98 <p_><quote_>"I'll get you home early,"<quote/> he said. 
K28  99 <quote_>"Early as you like."<quote/><p/>
K28 100 <p_><quote_>"I suppose we could. I'm thinking we might."<quote/> 
K28 101 She went off to another table and stood with her back to him. Munro 
K28 102 drank from his water glass, running the ice around his tongue, and 
K28 103 smiled comfortably at the immobile brilliance of the bay, its 
K28 104 surface inked in shadow.<p/>
K28 105 <p_>That was the kind of light he imagined in his special 
K28 106 afternoon, an ambience like that.<p/>
K28 107 <p_>They ate in a steakhouse too open and noisy, but after a bottle 
K28 108 of wine they talked freely in raised voices, discovering that they 
K28 109 might be distantly related through a great-grandmother, and that 
K28 110 brought them a few inches closer. Munro told her about his 
K28 111 carpentry work in San Francisco, cabinetmaking and remodeling, and 
K28 112 how he liked working for gays because they paid him well and were 
K28 113 particular. Ginny told him about Montreal and how she always tried 
K28 114 to speak French there because she got to know the people. She asked 
K28 115 him why he was living alone over there in St. Aubin with hay and 
K28 116 woods all around him.<p/>
K28 117 <p_><quote_>"Only for awhile,"<quote/> Munro said. He took a 
K28 118 photograph out of his coat and laid it on the white tablecloth, 
K28 119 moving his face closer to hers. <quote_>"That man there is my 
K28 120 father, Ginny. The women I don't know."<quote/><p/>
K28 121 <p_><quote_>"I'd say they like him, eh?"<quote/><p/>
K28 122 <p_><quote_>"Something more than that going on. Look at his 
K28 123 face."<quote/><p/>
K28 124 <p_><quote_>"Is he your age there, your dad?"<quote/><p/>
K28 125 <p_><quote_>"About."<quote/><p/>
K28 126 <p_><quote_>"I like your gray hair. It's a bit long. His looks 
K28 127 black."<quote/><p/>
K28 128 <p_><quote_>"And very proud of it he was. Vain, even."<quote/><p/>
K28 129 <p_><quote_>"He's dead?"<quote/><p/>
K28 130 <p_><quote_>"He is."<quote/> Munro tapped the photo. <quote_>"But 
K28 131 not here. Here, he is very much alive."<quote/> He touched her 
K28 132 hand. <quote_>"Would you come with me to a field like that? Would 
K28 133 you be one of those women, for an afternoon?"<quote/><p/>
K28 134 <p_>Ginny laughed. He looked so serious in the smoldering light of 
K28 135 the candle jar. But the people in the photograph, the man and the 
K28 136 two women, seemed happy, and she felt quite good herself after 
K28 137 three glasses of wine.<p/>
K28 138 <p_><quote_>"You mean like a picnic?"<quote/> she said.<p/>
K28 139 <p_>On the way back to Rooster Hill Munro pulled off the highway 
K28 140 near South Gut so they could take in the bay. Along the mountain 
K28 141 ridge the lost sun threw long red embers. In the evening water 
K28 142 below them, still as a pond, lay the blackened timbers of an old 
K28 143 wharf.<p/>
K28 144 <p_><quote_>"My father had a picture of that,"<quote/> Munro said. 
K28 145 <quote_>"From back in the twenties when he was a kid. There was a 
K28 146 schooner tied up to it. Looked like another century. Here, you want 
K28 147 a hit of this?"<quote/><p/>
K28 148 <p_>He proferred what she thought was a cigarette. She stared at 
K28 149 it.<p/>
K28 150 <p_><quote_>"Am I shocking you?"<quote/> Munro said.<p/>
K28 151 <p_><quote_>"I've run across it, and I don't shock easy as all 
K28 152 that."<quote/><p/>
K28 153 <p_>He was afraid he'd blown it with her, but he was in a hurry, 
K28 154 and for him puffs of grass were part of almost any pleasure.<p/>
K28 155 <p_><quote_>"You <tf|>are a woman,"<quote/> he said.<p/>
K28 156 <p_><quote_>"At home here, I am still a girl."<quote/><p/>
K28 157 <p_><quote_>"Well, then."<quote/> He made to stub out the joint but 
K28 158 she grabbed his wrist and took it from him, drawing a long hit.<p/>
K28 159 <p_><quote_>"God help us if the Mounties come by,"<quote/> she said 
K28 160 through the smoke. <quote_>"And you with relatives 
K28 161 here."<quote/><p/>
K28 162 <p_><quote_>"Never met any. One afternoon of my own is all I want. 
K28 163 With the sun out, and a warm wind coming up the field. And women 
K28 164 like those in the photo, at their ease. That's what I came for- to 
K28 165 take that back with me."<quote/><p/>
K28 166 <p_><quote_>"Ah, Ginny, you'll be more than that."<quote/><p/>
K28 167 <p_>They kissed in the car as it idled by her mailbox, once quickly 
K28 168 like friends, then again with a long deep taste of something 
K28 169 further. After Ginny got out, she kissed the window on the 
K28 170 passenger side. The fierce twilight made her reckless. Through the 
K28 171 rosy smudge on the glass, Munro watched her walk up the hill to her 
K28 172 house, twirling her bag.<p/>
K28 173 <p_>Fiona parted the parlor curtains: Kenneth Munro's car was 
K28 174 turning slowly up his driveway, its broad taillights reminding her, 
K28 175 in the foggy dark, of a spaceship. Wee men would be coming out of 
K28 176 it, heading for the scattered houses of St. Aubin. 
K28 177 <foreign_>Feasgar math<foreign/>, she'd say, I've been waiting. 
K28 178 <foreign_>Fuirich beagan<foreign/>. Certain feelings had no shape 
K28 179 in English, and sometimes she whispered them to herself. Harald was 
K28 180 not a speaker above the odd phrase, but Gaelic came to her now and 
K28 181 then like old voices. <foreign|>Traighean. The sands of Harris, the 
K28 182 long shell-sand beaches that even on a dour day opened up white 
K28 183 like a stroke of sun, still warm to your bare feet after the wind 
K28 184 went cold and the clouds glowered over the gusting sea. Those 
K28 185 strange and lovely summers, so distant now- brief, with emotions 
K28 186 wild as the weather, days whose light stretched long into evening 
K28 187 and you went to bed in a blue dusk.<p/>
K28 188 <p_><quote_>"Harald,"<quote/> she said, <quote_>"Is it time for a 
K28 189 call on Mr. Munro?"<quote/> But Harald, pink from haying, had dozed 
K28 190 off in his chair. A rerun of <tf_>Love Boat<tf/> undulated across 
K28 191 the television, the signals bouncing badly off the mountain 
K28 192 tonight. Fiona loathed the program. When she turned off the set, 
K28 193 Harald woke. He kissed her on the cheek, then wandered upstairs 
K28 194 seeking his bed.<p/>
K28 195 <p_>So why not go up to Munro's? Yet when she thought of him 
K28 196 opening the door, her breath caught. Of course she could phone him 
K28 197 first, but that was not the same thing, was it?<p/>
K28 198 <p_>Fiona had shared a life with Harald for a long time, here in 
K28 199 the country. She'd left Harris for a small farm in Nova Scotia 
K28 200 because she loved the man who asked her away, the seaman she'd met 
K28 201 in Stornoway where she worked in a woolen shop. Love. <foreign_>An 
K28 202 gaol.<foreign/> Yes, she had no reservations about that word, and 
K28 203 all it carried, never had. She loved his company, even when he was 
K28 204 dull ( and wasn't she the dull one too sometimes, shut into 
K28 205 herself, beaten down by a mood?). The two of them together had 
K28 206 always seemed enough, and although they liked other people, they 
K28 207 never longed for them. Small delights could suffice, if you were 
K28 208 close in that way you couldn't explain to anyone else: it was the 
K28 209 robin who nested every summer in the lilac bush at the front door, 
K28 210 huddled in the delicate branches as they came and went, always 
K28 211 aware of her, pleased that she didn't flee, and the families of 
K28 212 deer they watched from the big window at the foot of their bed, 
K28 213 grazing elegantly one moment and exploding into motion the next, 
K28 214 and every day the Great Bras D'Eau, the different suns on its 
K28 215 surface, the water shaded and etched by tides, stilled by winter, 
K28 216 the crush of drift ice, and the long mountain in autumn, swept with 
K28 217 the brilliance of leaves.
K28 218 
K29   1 <#FROWN:K29\><h_><p_>Stephen Peters<p/>
K29   2 <p_><foreign|>Babuji<p/><h/>
K29   3 <p_>It began, he thought, auspiciously enough. In the plane as they 
K29   4 flew over the Indian subcontinent from Bangkok, Richard sat in a 
K29   5 window seat watching a pale thundercloud rise level with and a mile 
K29   6 off from the airplane. Far below through the mists of the cloud 
K29   7 were the starry lights of a city, and as the plane wheeled toward 
K29   8 the thunderhead, branches of lightning flashed and filled it from 
K29   9 top to bottom like arteries and veins shot through with blue 
K29  10 illuminate. The cloud twisted on its axis, larger still, flexed its 
K29  11 billows, heaved its hoary chest, wagged an old man's beard at 
K29  12 Richard, then its body filled again with the jagged lines of blue 
K29  13 light, jolted up straighter, more powerful even that before. He 
K29  14 watched for the ten minutes or so it took to approach and then pass 
K29  15 the cloud. <quote_>"What a sight!"<quote/> he told the Arab man 
K29  16 sitting next to him. <quote|>"Sensational," he said over and over 
K29  17 again. The man leaned across Richard to stare out the window and 
K29  18 rested his thick paw on Richard's thigh for balance, an alarming, 
K29  19 embarrassing feeling that Richard wanted over with. <quote_>"What a 
K29  20 way to start,"<quote/> he said matter of factly and turned away 
K29  21 from the window, hoping the man would get off him. <quote_>"What a 
K29  22 sight <tf|>that was."<quote/> In half an hour they were on the 
K29  23 ground in Bombay. It was three in the morning and pitch black.<p/>
K29  24 <p_>The ride from the airport in the dark looked almost like any 
K29  25 ride in a taxi from any airport, except that many of the trucks and 
K29  26 cabs drove with their lights off, some even on the wrong side of 
K29  27 the road, and except that indistinct shapes like giraffes or camels 
K29  28 seemed always about to race out in front of the taxi from the 
K29  29 shadows. Time to sleep when the creature images start, he thought. 
K29  30 It was nothing more than the whimsy of fatigue. He let himself sink 
K29  31 back into the vinyl of the passenger's seat and half closed his 
K29  32 eyes. They came wide open again and he cringed and sat up straight 
K29  33 as his driver, a fat, bald man in his fifties, Richard's own age, 
K29  34 started to pass a darkened truck but then seemed happy to simply 
K29  35 run parallel to it. <quote_>"From which country do you 
K29  36 come?"<quote/> the cheerful driver asked.<p/>
K29  37 <p_>Richard glanced from the back of the driver's head to the truck 
K29  38 they had not completed passing. He felt an empty, cold space in his 
K29  39 gut. A pair of headlights approached in the windshield but the 
K29  40 driver seemed unconcerned. Richard would have complained at home in 
K29  41 Minneapolis or even in New York. Here, though, he would never quite 
K29  42 be sure what to do. <quote_>"I'm from the United States,"<quote/> 
K29  43 he said. He noticed that written in English on the side of the 
K29  44 truck with no headlights were the words 'Caution! Highly 
K29  45 Inflammable Gases!'<quote_>"That's a rolling Molotov 
K29  46 cocktail,"<quote/> he told the driver.<p/>
K29  47 <p_><quote_>"A very good country, the USA,"<quote/> said the man. 
K29  48 <quote_>"I have many friends USA. Change money?"<quote/><p/>
K29  49 <p_>But at that instant the oncoming headlights reached them, the 
K29  50 talkative driver couldn't decide which way to turn, and the three 
K29  51 vehicles tangled themselves into a rolling, spinning collision of 
K29  52 screeching tires, breaking glass, shredded blades of slashing 
K29  53 aluminum, and fire. Richard was not burnt. His body shot over the 
K29  54 driver's seat and through the windshield, landing like a heap of 
K29  55 dirty laundry in the dust and rocks at the side of the road. His 
K29  56 neck and back were broken, and a long laceration starting at his 
K29  57 hairline and staggering across his face and neck, ending in his 
K29  58 lower torso, made him look as if someone had turned him 
K29  59 half<?_>-<?/>way inside out. His mouth filled with commingling dust 
K29  60 and blood, and for an instant, only for that instant, he felt the 
K29  61 sharp air move across the open wound of his face. He smiled as a 
K29  62 herd of giraffes, racing monkeys under foot, galloped away across 
K29  63 the black wasteland.<p/>
K29  64 <p_>After that he stood above his own body wondering what was meant 
K29  65 to happen next. <quote_>"There are no giraffes in India,"<quote/> 
K29  66 he said aloud. The burning wreck blocked half the road, and 
K29  67 vehicles coming to and leaving the airport picked their ways 
K29  68 through this island of fire. Richard watched impassively as the 
K29  69 sleepy, morbidly curious passengers stared through smokey<&|>sic! 
K29  70 windows and continued on. He poked the body at his feet, his own 
K29  71 body, with the toe of his tasseled loafers. <quote_>"No 
K29  72 response,"<quote/> he said aloud. <quote_>"I'm here."<quote/><p/>
K29  73 <p_>Who would know what to do in that circumstance? His suitcase 
K29  74 and shoulder bag sat neatly next to the road, as if waiting for him 
K29  75 like a pair of shoes set next to the bed in the morning. He picked 
K29  76 them up, found his way past the burning wreck, and began walking 
K29  77 into his darkness. No cabs would stop while within sight of the 
K29  78 fire, so he had to walk three miles before he caught a ride to his 
K29  79 hotel.<p/>
K29  80 <p_>Strangely, though, nothing happened immediately after that. He 
K29  81 imagined while riding in the second taxi, that, since he was 
K29  82 conscious and apparently dead, he would be delivered to some 
K29  83 vaguely angelic keeper of souls, escorted through a heavenly 
K29  84 customs gate. Instead he arrived at the very hotel he had 
K29  85 previously made reservations in. The hotel was a famous one facing 
K29  86 the waterfront, all plush and brass and glass and the Sikh doorman 
K29  87 sported an elaborate white uniform and a huge red turban. Many of 
K29  88 Richard's 'clients' at home - ne'er do wells and welfare mothers, 
K29  89 people for whom he no longer felt real compassion - lived in a 
K29  90 trailer park that would have fit neatly into that lobby.<p/>
K29  91 <p_>The young man at the desk wore a neat blue suit and efficiently 
K29  92 checked Richard in and saw to it that Richard's bags were carried 
K29  93 to his room. He had a full mustache and a curl of his wavy black 
K29  94 hair fell onto his forehead.<p/>
K29  95 <p_><quote_>"So things just go on,"<quote/> Richard whispered. 
K29  96 <quote_>"Nothing happens. How stupid."<quote/><p/>
K29  97 <p_><quote_>"I beg your pardon, sir?"<quote/> the clerk asked. When 
K29  98 Richard only stared at him, he said. <quote_>"We don't tip here, 
K29  99 sir. There will be a ten percent service charge added to your bill 
K29 100 when you leave."<quote/><p/>
K29 101 <p_>Richard tipped the bell hop when he got to the room anyway. 
K29 102 <quote_>"There will be more when I leave if you take good care of 
K29 103 me,"<quote/> he said. The man understood, and Richard felt clever 
K29 104 and cocky. Because he kept his budget tight, he could afford only 
K29 105 two nights in this place, but he would have good service from the 
K29 106 little man while he stayed. How much would he have to tip after 
K29 107 just two nights in a place that allowed no tipping? he wondered. It 
K29 108 couldn't be much, and anyhow how much was too much in his new 
K29 109 state, such as it was?<p/>
K29 110 <p_>But something seemed odd, different in how he handled the 
K29 111 money. Was it in his elbows? His fingertips? He'd found it 
K29 112 difficult to judge where his pockets were when reaching to find the 
K29 113 tip for the man. His arms were numb.<p/>
K29 114 <p_>Watching his movements carefully, judging with his eye now 
K29 115 instead of by feel, he threw the curtains open wide and looked out 
K29 116 over not the harbor but a poor side street below. The sun, just 
K29 117 coming up, caught the angles and pastels of a building that was 
K29 118 either being torn down brick by brick or going up the same way. He 
K29 119 couldn't tell, but he thought of a cubist painting as he stood 
K29 120 watching the sharp blades of light stab across the surface of 
K29 121 yellow bricks. <quote_>"Tangy,"<quote/> he said aloud and, struck 
K29 122 by the oddness of the sensation, tasted the sight on his tongue. 
K29 123 <quote_>"Good grief."<quote/> A woman in an orange sari squatted 
K29 124 next to a cooking fire inside the painting's walls. Did she live 
K29 125 there? What difference did it make? He wanted to deny the odd 
K29 126 sensations creeping over him.<p/>
K29 127 <p_>Apparently you live and you die and nothing changes, he told 
K29 128 himself. He had always figured he had done his part for the world, 
K29 129 <quote_>"more than the world probably deserves,"<quote/> he had 
K29 130 liked to tell the drab young woman in the desk next to his at the 
K29 131 office. <quote_>"After the final words are written and signed, we 
K29 132 are all only really responsible for who and what we are, not for 
K29 133 the who and what of other lives. We are, after all, alone."<quote/> 
K29 134 He liked saying that and he said it rather cynically because it 
K29 135 shocked and offended her. She was passionate about the social 
K29 136 welfare work they did. <quote_>"The poor will always be with 
K29 137 us,"<quote/> he likes adding for good measure. <quote_>"So no 
K29 138 unemployment for us."<quote/><p/>
K29 139 <p_>After retreating into sleep for a few hours, he rose and 
K29 140 shaved. His face was numb. He might have nicked himself and felt 
K29 141 nothing. He took a long hot shower. He turned the shower on full 
K29 142 blast and stuck his face close up to the nozzle but felt no pain, 
K29 143 only a dull pressure, on his face. Then, after drying off, he 
K29 144 stopped to examine himself in the mirror for changes. He was a 
K29 145 slight man, neither tall nor short, with kinky gray hair 
K29 146 increasingly thin in a patch on the back of his head. His features 
K29 147 were good, not especially strong, but rather aquiline and, under 
K29 148 the weathered grayness of age, his skin still radiated the pink 
K29 149 associated with Sunday school and sunlight. He could be positively 
K29 150 boyish with a drink in his hand at office social gatherings, and 
K29 151 women often wanted to take him home and care for him. His drab 
K29 152 young colleague had done just that a time or two, but he felt she'd 
K29 153 become dependent and so cut her off. He saw no change in his 
K29 154 reflection, no sign of the previous night's trauma except maybe a 
K29 155 sourness at the back of the throat that might have still been 
K29 156 fatigue. <quote_>"I see a sourness?"<quote/><p/>
K29 157 <p_>Still wondering about the jumble of vision and taste, he 
K29 158 ventured out onto the street, searching for the tangy building he 
K29 159 could see from his room. The same woman in the orange sari squatted 
K29 160 next to the same fire stirring the coals. A man, presumably her 
K29 161 husband, reclined on a nearby stack of bricks smoking a foul 
K29 162 smelling Indian cigarette that looked like a marijuana joint. A 
K29 163 second woman sifted dirt through a box with a screen bottom. For 
K29 164 one brief moment the air stank of urine and tobacco, sight and 
K29 165 smell united.<p/>
K29 166 <p_>Apparently there would be no sign today, good or bad, that 
K29 167 might explain his condition. He had expected for the world to 
K29 168 change the moment he looked again at reality, but that didn't seem 
K29 169 to be happening. True, there were these other, odd sensation, the 
K29 170 numbness, the sight/taste confusion, but nothing like that was 
K29 171 unexpected when you were jet lagged and people had told him India 
K29 172 would assault his senses in unexpected ways. He took each step 
K29 173 mindful of the sensation the pavement cause his heel, his shin, his 
K29 174 knee as he walked through the heat and the crowds of tourists and 
K29 175 vendors. He noted the time and date on his wristwatch. Things were 
K29 176 almost the same as always. People spoke to him. He was not 
K29 177 invisible. His elbows and fingertips had not returned to normal. In 
K29 178 fact, his arms from shoulder to fingertips hung loose and unfeeling 
K29 179 from his torso, but he could still use them. As if to prove this to 
K29 180 himself, he bought a handful of peanuts from a grizzled old-timer 
K29 181 stooping under a palm tree on the curb, and he held the peanuts in 
K29 182 his hand. They did not fall through his skin; he did not drop them. 
K29 183 He had not turned into Casper the Ghost, walking through walls. 
K29 184 What could he do but continue with his plans, even when he had no 
K29 185 real plans? The peanuts tasted? - rectangular.<p/>
K29 186 <p_>He had slept most of the day away, spent one of his 2,500 rupee 
K29 187 nights dreaming of giraffe herds cantering aimlessly over an 
K29 188 endless savanna.
K29 189 
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