Part 4 (1/2)
1
When the alarm clock went off at six-thirty that Friday, Sammy awoke to find that Sky City, a chromium cocktail tray stocked with moderne bottles, shakers, and swizzle sticks, was underho blond hero of Sammy's Pimpernel of the Planets Pied demons, horns carefully whorled like whelks, iant, stubbly spider with the eyes of a wo underside of Sky City Other de sabers, cla in on ropes froly rendered rigging of aerials and vanes In co table, wearing only black kneesocks clocked with red lozenges, and swaddled in a baggy pair of off-white Czechoslovakian underpants, sat Josef Kavalier, scratching aith one of Saed demons, horns carefully whorled like whelks, iant, stubbly spider with the eyes of a wo underside of Sky City Other de sabers, cla in on ropes froly rendered rigging of aerials and vanes In co table, wearing only black kneesocks clocked with red lozenges, and swaddled in a baggy pair of off-white Czechoslovakian underpants, sat Josef Kavalier, scratching aith one of Sammy's best pens
Sammy slid down to the foot of his bed to peer over his cousin's shoulder ”What the hell are you doing to e?” he said
The captain of the demonic invasion force, absorbed in his deployht by surprise He juht hold of the table's edge and neatly righted himself, then reached out just in time to catch the bottle of ink before it, too, could tip over He was quick
”I am sorry,” Josef said ”I was very careful to don't hars See” He lifted an overlaid sheet from the ae panel Sa on, and the five noisome bat-de” He peeled away the baboon-faced demon raiders and lifted the paper spider by the end of her thread With a few quick e of Sky City was lifted full-page panel Sa on, and the five noisome bat-de” He peeled away the baboon-faced demon raiders and lifted the paper spider by the end of her thread With a few quick e of Sky City was lifted
”Holy cow!” said Sammy He clapped his cousin on his freckled shoulder ”Christ, look at this! Let s” He took the kidney-shaped sheet that Josef Kavalier had filled with slavering coal-eyed horned de The proportions of the muscular demons were perfect, their poses ani-lined The style was far more sophisticated than Sammy's, which, while confident and plain and occasionally bold, was never anything”You really can draw” draw”
”I o years studying at the Acadeue”
”The Academy of Fine Arts” Sammy's boss, Sheldon Anapol, was i, iination for round ”Okay, you can drawan e to conceal his excitement
”Of course”
”Your anatomy seems not bad at all”
”It's a fascination for me”
”Can you draw the sound of a fart?”
”Sorry?”
”At E sounds A fart, you knohat that means?” Sammy clapped the cupped palm of one hand to the opposite ar out a battery of curt, wet blasts His cousin, eyes wide, got the idea ”Naturally, we can't say it outright in the ads We have to say so like 'The Whoopee Hat Liner eined than described' So you really have to get it across in the drawing”
”I see,” said Josef He see of wind” He scratched five quick horizontal lines on a scrap of paper ”Then I would put such ss, so” He sprinkled his staff with stars and curlicues and broken musical notation
”Nice,” said Sa to try to do better than just get you a job drawing the Gravet us into the bigsuddenly hungry and gaunt ”That would be good of you, Saht”
Sammy was startled by the avidity in his cousin's face Then he realized what the money anted for, whicha disappoint to worry about four starving Jews in Czechoslovakia But he ed to discount the treht,” he said ”Shake, Josef”
Josef put forth his hand, then pulled back He put on what he ht was an A, and screwed his features into a would-be Jauy squint ”Call me Joe,” he said
”Joe Kavalier”
”Saain, then Sa himself blush, ”my professional name is Clay”
”Clay?”
”Yeah I, uh, I just think it sounds more professional”
Joe nodded ”Sam Clay,” he said
”Joe Kavalier”
They shook hands
”Boys!” called Mrs Klayman fro about any of this tomy name”
They went out to the laminate table in the kitchen and sat down in two of the padded chroeny, was sitting beside Joe, ignoring him completely She had encountered, for better or worse, so s since 1846 that she seemed to have lost the inclination, perhaps even the ability, to acknowledge faces or events that dated from any time after the Great War, when she had perfor, the city of her birth, at the age of seventy, to coest of her eleven children Sa uely beloved shadow from which the farandchildren, soe, boneless woman who draped herself like an old blanket over the chairs of the apartht in oblique sunbeams, her arms streaked and pocked like relief maps of vast planets, her -colored support hose She was quixotically vain about her appearance and spent an hour eachup her face
”Eat,” Ethel snapped, depositing in front of Joe a stack of black rectangles and a pool of yellow ed to identify for his He popped a forkful into his mouth and chewed it with a circuht he detected a hint of genuine disgust
Sammy performed the rapid series of operations-which co of da of a secret map on the point of capture by ene Then he stood up, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and pulled on his good wool blazer ”Coo” He leaned down to embed a kiss in Bubble's suede cheek
Joe dropped his spoon and, in the course of retrieving it, bumped his head on the table, hard Bubbie cried out, and aensued Then Joe stood up, too, and delicately wiped his lips with his paper napkin He smoothed it out when he finished and laid it on his empty plate
”Delicious,” he said ”Thank you”
”Here,” Ethel said, taking a neat tweed suit, on a hanger, from the back of a kitchen chair ”I pressed your suit and took the spots off your shi+rt”
”Thank you, Aunt”
Ethel put her arave him a proud squeeze ”This one kno to draw a lizard, that I can tell you”
Sammy flushed This was a reference to the peculiar difficulties Sammy had run into, the month before, with the Live Chameleon item (”Wear it on your lapel to amaze and impress!”) that Eenital lack of skill with reptiles was compounded by the fact that he had no idea what kind of reptile twenty-five cents sent to Empire Novelty would buy, since there were, in fact, no Live Chameleons in stock, and would not be until Shelly Anapol sa hts poring over encyclopedias and library books, drawing hundreds of lizards, thin and fat, Old World and New, horned and hooded, and had ended up with so that looked a little like a flattened, bald squirrel It was his sole failure since taking on the draftsmanshi+p chores at Enal one
”He won't have to draw any lizards, or cheap cameras, or any of that other dreck they sell,” said Saiven Joe, ”not if Anapol goes in for my plan”
”What plan?” His mother narrowed her eyes
”Coht to her face
”Comic books!” She rolled her eyes
” 'Comic books'?” said Joe ”What are these?”
”Trash,” said Ethel