Part 42 (2/2)
”But it was a surprise.”
”To William's boy it was. Not to me. But I heard they had no intention of inviting you-they didn't want to embarra.s.s you, really their motives were perfectly reasonable, all things considered. The same nice group of them down from Harvard Law, that's why, and not one took you out the time before. What a waste, that bon voyage!-It's because you have no bosom. You're not social either. It's sickening, with you it's brain brain brain. Oozing brain all up and down the side of you.”
”You mean of course the maternal side,” Enoch said.
”Viper.”
”Wipe her yourself,” he only seemed to capitulate: ”she's yours. Send not to ask for whom she oozes, she oozes for thee. As for me, I'm ready for compulsory gaiety”-laying aside a broad book-it was an atlas-with a sardonic sigh.
”Now don't say compulsory. Enoch, it's mean to say compulsory. If I ask you to go with me it's voluntary, isn't it?-Good G.o.d, if there are photographers! Won't William feast on I-told-you-so, he thinks flashbulbs fell with Lucifer. Only let's take the subway.”
”The subway?” He was incredulous.
”Well why not? I haven't ridden the subway in years.” Flailing, my mother collected her burgeoning gown at the knee; energies bickered in her throat. ”All those loops hanging from the ceiling. I like the subway. What if someone threaded a big wide s.h.i.+ny ribbon, Virginmaryblue maybe, and satin, right through all those loops, right through the whole train, from one car to the other? Like a horizontal maypole, sort of. Wouldn't it be beautiful, all that waving and twisting underground? I like tunnels.” She displayed a silvery face innocent as a plate. ”You know where we're off to? Guess. You'll never guess.”
I forfeited my guess by declining.
”A club, that's where,” she said, her elbows pink with satisfaction. -”I suddenly couldn't stand all that reading, I suddenly couldn't stand bed, if you want to hear the truth. Static! Viscous! Another minute of it and I would've been ready for Dr. Freud, so I decided the way not to be sick was not to be sick,” she explained. ”Mind over mattress Enoch said it was, so here we are going to the loudest nightclub on the map. Oh look, you're not taking that d.a.m.n map? Not with you? Think how it'll look in the papers, just in case, and the hearings coming up!-I mean if there are photographers, columnists,” she said joyously, ”there are always columnists, vermin-”
”At the appropriate moment I will retire to the men's room,” said my stepfather, ”a palatial nook of Byzantine splendor and Roman proportions-”
”You and that map. Really. You don't have to memorize every village. Those stupid Senators aren't going to get you to tell the population of every little dump in the whole country, are they? It's bad publicity to be seen studying.”
”Depends what the man is studying,” Enoch said. ”In this case, on the eve of my possible aggrandizement-”
”Not possible. Definite.”
”-I'm learning how small I am. An atlas is a source-book for human insignificance. Puts you in scale, full of oceans, oceans full of islands, islands full of sand, sand full of infinities-”
”You full of stupidities. I'm not interested in feeling small, just remember that. Those d.a.m.n Taj Mahals round my ears, I was so depressed-what I want is to go out and get noticed. I admit it! It's not as though I'm afraid to admit it. I've been cooped up too long, I intend to feel something great before the night is out. I mean an experience. Like the haying scene-”
”The haying scene!” said Enoch, delighted. ”The haying scene in a nightclub! And then stack it all up in Was.h.i.+ngton Square?”
”Well I meant the emotional equivalent. You know that's all I meant.”
”The h.e.l.l you did. It's the pitchfork you're after. To each his own.”
”I just want to feel something. I haven't felt anything in such a long time.” She turned unexpectedly desolate, lifting her hooded head to the mirror and absently addressing my image in it: ”You mean you got invited after all?”
”No,” I said. ”I just went.”
”Rude, very rude. Did you dance?”
”There wasn't any music.”
”Of course there wasn't any music,” she said contemptuously, as though the idea had been mine. ”Too many desks in the place. How did he look? Happy?”
”William?”
”Fool. His boy. William hates that Pettigrew girl. Afraid his boy won't be the first. William puts a lot of value on being first.”
”She's very pretty,” I said.
”Pretty, pretty, what's pretty? At that age it's no trick to be pretty. I was pretty too, what's pretty? For you it's a trick. I don't know how you manage to look practically thirty and no bosom. People ask if I had you at ten. I tell them certainly: she was ten at birth. Some people are born a hundred years old. It's the effect of what do you call it, Enoch? That word like the name of a German newspaper? That Eddie put in the-”
”Weltanschauung,” Enoch said: ”Come on, if we're going let's go.”
”No not that one. The other word that Eddie-with the ghost in it.”
”Zeitgeist,” he obliged, and settled back into his chair again.
”That's the one. You know I heard from Eddie this afternoon. Already. I knew he could be trusted, whatever Enoch said,” she informed me. ”Two telegrams delivered together, one from last night when he landed out there, one from this morning. He flew. I let him fly to get him back here on time for the next number. Here.”
She handed me two yellow paper squares and I read on one: GOLDEN WEST GOLDEN WEST.
I WILL MAKE YOU QUICK.
AS HAIKU OR SOME GIRL.
and on the other: IN SAN FRANCISCO.
THE ZEITGEIST BLOWS THROUGH SNEEZING.
FROM ITS ALLERGY.
”Teasing!” my mother said.
”He sent them collect,” I observed.
”Teasing!” she repeated. ”Of course as theory they're too rigid, but otherwise as poems they're not bad. Surrealistic. If you stare at them long enough they expand out of their superficial meaning into a deeper meaning, can you see that?-Never mind, I take it back, it's no use asking you. Wordsworth,” she p.r.o.nounced, haughtily and heavily. ”We don't print any of that ilk in Bushelbasket, do we?” She appealed beyond me to Enoch.
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