thirty thousand British overwhelmed eighty thousand Italians, I learn from the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
, capturing forty thousand Italians and four hundred guns.
When the
Britannica
talks about captured guns, it doesn’t mean rifles and pistols. It means great big guns.
Yes, and since Gregory and his sidekick Jones were such weapons nuts, let it be said that it was Matilda tanks, and Stens and Brens and Enfield rifles with fixed bayonets which did them in.
Why did Marilee go to Italy with Gregory and Jones? She was in love with Gregory, and he was in love with her.
How is that for simplicity?
The easternmost house of the three which used to belong to Gregory, I only discovered on this most recent trip to New York, is now the office and dwelling of the Delegation to the United Nations of the Emirate of Salibaar. That was the first I had ever heard of the Emirate of Salibaar, which I can’t find anywhere in my
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
I can only find a desert town by thatname, population eleven thousand, about the population of San Ignacio. Circe Berman says it is time I got a new encyclopedia, and some new neckties, too.
The big oak door and its massive hinges are unchanged, except that the Gorgon knocker is gone. Gregory took it with him to Italy, and I saw it again on the front door of Marilee’s palace in Florence after the war.
Maybe it has now migrated elsewhere, since Italy’s and my beloved Contessa Portomaggiore died of natural causes in her sleep in the same week my beloved Edith passed away.
Some
week
for old Rabo Karabekian!
The middle brownstone has been divided into five apartments, one on each floor, including the basement, as I learned by the mailboxes and doorbells in the foyer.
But don’t mention foyers to me! More about that in a little bit! All things in good time.
That middle house used to contain the guest room where I was first incarcerated, and Gregory’s grand dining room right below that, and his research library below that, and the storage room for his art materials in the basement. I was mostly curious, though, about the top floor, which used to be the part of Gregory’s studio with the big, leaky skylight. I wanted to know whether there was still a skylight up there, and, if so, if anybodyhad ever found a way to stop its leaks, or whether there were still pots and pans making John Cage music underneath it when it rained or snowed.
But there was nobody to ask, so I never found out. So there is one storytelling fizzle for you, dear Reader. I never found out.
And here is another one. The house to the west of that one is, judging from the mailboxes and bells, evidentally a triplex at the bottom, with a duplex on top of that. It was this third of Gregory’s establishment which the live-in servants had inhabited, and where I, too, was given a small but cheerful bedroom. Fred Jones’s bedroom, by the way, was right in back of Gregory’s and Marilee’s room in the Emirate of Salibaar.
This woman came out of the brownstone with the duplex and triplex. She was old and trembly, but her posture was good, and it was easy to see that she had been very beautiful at one time. I locked my gaze to hers, and a flash of recognition went off in my skull. I knew
her
, but she didn’t know
me.
We had never met. I realized that I had seen her in motion pictures when she was much younger. A second later, I came up with her name. She was Barbira Mencken, the ex-wife of Paul Slazinger. He had lost touch with her years ago, had no idea where she lived. She hadn’t done a movie or a play for a long, long time, but there she was. Greta Garbo and Katharine Hepburn also live in that same general neighborhood.
I didn’t speak to her. Should I have spoken to her? What would I have had to say to her? “Paul is fine and sends his best”? Or how about this one: “Tell me how your parents died”?
I had supper at the Century Club, to which I have belonged for many years. There was a new maître
Encyclopaedia Britannica
, capturing forty thousand Italians and four hundred guns.
When the
Britannica
talks about captured guns, it doesn’t mean rifles and pistols. It means great big guns.
Yes, and since Gregory and his sidekick Jones were such weapons nuts, let it be said that it was Matilda tanks, and Stens and Brens and Enfield rifles with fixed bayonets which did them in.
Why did Marilee go to Italy with Gregory and Jones? She was in love with Gregory, and he was in love with her.
How is that for simplicity?
The easternmost house of the three which used to belong to Gregory, I only discovered on this most recent trip to New York, is now the office and dwelling of the Delegation to the United Nations of the Emirate of Salibaar. That was the first I had ever heard of the Emirate of Salibaar, which I can’t find anywhere in my
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
I can only find a desert town by thatname, population eleven thousand, about the population of San Ignacio. Circe Berman says it is time I got a new encyclopedia, and some new neckties, too.
The big oak door and its massive hinges are unchanged, except that the Gorgon knocker is gone. Gregory took it with him to Italy, and I saw it again on the front door of Marilee’s palace in Florence after the war.
Maybe it has now migrated elsewhere, since Italy’s and my beloved Contessa Portomaggiore died of natural causes in her sleep in the same week my beloved Edith passed away.
Some
week
for old Rabo Karabekian!
The middle brownstone has been divided into five apartments, one on each floor, including the basement, as I learned by the mailboxes and doorbells in the foyer.
But don’t mention foyers to me! More about that in a little bit! All things in good time.
That middle house used to contain the guest room where I was first incarcerated, and Gregory’s grand dining room right below that, and his research library below that, and the storage room for his art materials in the basement. I was mostly curious, though, about the top floor, which used to be the part of Gregory’s studio with the big, leaky skylight. I wanted to know whether there was still a skylight up there, and, if so, if anybodyhad ever found a way to stop its leaks, or whether there were still pots and pans making John Cage music underneath it when it rained or snowed.
But there was nobody to ask, so I never found out. So there is one storytelling fizzle for you, dear Reader. I never found out.
And here is another one. The house to the west of that one is, judging from the mailboxes and bells, evidentally a triplex at the bottom, with a duplex on top of that. It was this third of Gregory’s establishment which the live-in servants had inhabited, and where I, too, was given a small but cheerful bedroom. Fred Jones’s bedroom, by the way, was right in back of Gregory’s and Marilee’s room in the Emirate of Salibaar.
This woman came out of the brownstone with the duplex and triplex. She was old and trembly, but her posture was good, and it was easy to see that she had been very beautiful at one time. I locked my gaze to hers, and a flash of recognition went off in my skull. I knew
her
, but she didn’t know
me.
We had never met. I realized that I had seen her in motion pictures when she was much younger. A second later, I came up with her name. She was Barbira Mencken, the ex-wife of Paul Slazinger. He had lost touch with her years ago, had no idea where she lived. She hadn’t done a movie or a play for a long, long time, but there she was. Greta Garbo and Katharine Hepburn also live in that same general neighborhood.
I didn’t speak to her. Should I have spoken to her? What would I have had to say to her? “Paul is fine and sends his best”? Or how about this one: “Tell me how your parents died”?
I had supper at the Century Club, to which I have belonged for many years. There was a new maître
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