Montreal, made money there, and now lived both places; a titled member of the inner council of the government of the island of Bermuda; and of a New York attorney for ‘lost’ causes and his activist wife—they themselves have no dogma beyond what they will do. They’re of course the same girlfriends who house-guest each other at poolsides in Evanston, Westmount, Paget, and Bridgehampton. Along with their follower, the ‘Boston environmentalist’, veteran of two rallies and one long march—me. They admire me for having done it all on foot.
I see them—us—at a long wooden table in the basement of a brownstone in Greenwich Village, the house of a boyfriend whose parents were in Europe. The basement was once the servants’ kitchen, from which meals were carried upstairs to the dining room; now it is the ‘family room.’ The long table has been swept clean of picture puzzles—the expensive kind, each with two hundred fifty pieces as sharp as cameos, and is piled with bomb parts. Our trouble is—or my four friends’ trouble is—that though no one of them knows everything about bomb-making, each of them knows something. No matter, they are in practice session. I can feel again that electric atmosphere. They are feeling revolution. I can see all four, as sharply as if memory had never lapsed.
On the left is Doris Brody from Evanston, a brownie dumpling of a girl who believes her life there is a bore. ‘They’re sweet, my folks, but like marshmallow, though our food is much fancier. No—like the upholstery in Cadillacs. They gave us kids everything but real ethics; we did nothing for the world. Not bad people so you could see, nothing satanic. Just co-omfortable.’ She moos the word. ‘We live in the suburbs of life. Lots of pillows.’
Then comes Emmy Sklar the banker’s daughter, skinny bird from commuting between three houses and back-and-forth over a border. When she invited me to the Westmount house where she was born, her favorite, she and I were the only ones who turned up, and the bonne served us our holiday meal. ‘My father collects pre-Nazi German art about the masses. Though we never met any of those. My mother kept the Käthe Kollwitz drawings on Park Avenue, to show where we stand.’ And the Hampton house was great for benefits. Her mother died, though, of leukemia. Now her father collects Klimts—‘Sexy Austrian dames, with bodies like waterfalls,’ and at first had a mistress who looked like one, then married again, not her. ‘My stepmother, I have nothing against her, except I can’t be in the same house with her.’ When Emmy chokes, is it sentiment or revulsion? ‘She’s a ringer for my mom.’ And her own analyst is advising that if she has no boyfriends it’s because she can’t choose what kind to have. Monied guys, like the only ones she meets, or bruisers from the bottomline South Fork bars, who scare her blue. ‘Better be red—’ she says, her tiny fingers manipulating the wiring into what must be its proper destination. A bomb’s surer than most things. And you don’t need a collection.’
Carey Plumford. At the table she never said much. I see her stretch, strawberry blonde in daisy-print bathing suit, never bikinis, neat sports-girl from the elite of Bermuda. Never wore make-up, toenails like a baby’s. In the hay with boys since she was twelve. Papa, a Sir somebody, suspected nothing. ‘“Dear girl,” he calls me. But my mother, she drinks so you don’t see it, slow but sure. And alcohol makes one wise. She always sneaked me in to see American movies; Dadda forbade me them.’ And raised the roof when she wanted college in the U.S.
I see that roof again. Long, low, sub-British in the not quite tropics, it had needed raising. Solid conservative new, the house could have subbed for Triminghams’s, the traditional shop for tourist goods: blue-and-white Wedgwood ashtrays, silver boarding-school style bracelets. Carey laughed when I told her that. ‘We’re
I see them—us—at a long wooden table in the basement of a brownstone in Greenwich Village, the house of a boyfriend whose parents were in Europe. The basement was once the servants’ kitchen, from which meals were carried upstairs to the dining room; now it is the ‘family room.’ The long table has been swept clean of picture puzzles—the expensive kind, each with two hundred fifty pieces as sharp as cameos, and is piled with bomb parts. Our trouble is—or my four friends’ trouble is—that though no one of them knows everything about bomb-making, each of them knows something. No matter, they are in practice session. I can feel again that electric atmosphere. They are feeling revolution. I can see all four, as sharply as if memory had never lapsed.
On the left is Doris Brody from Evanston, a brownie dumpling of a girl who believes her life there is a bore. ‘They’re sweet, my folks, but like marshmallow, though our food is much fancier. No—like the upholstery in Cadillacs. They gave us kids everything but real ethics; we did nothing for the world. Not bad people so you could see, nothing satanic. Just co-omfortable.’ She moos the word. ‘We live in the suburbs of life. Lots of pillows.’
Then comes Emmy Sklar the banker’s daughter, skinny bird from commuting between three houses and back-and-forth over a border. When she invited me to the Westmount house where she was born, her favorite, she and I were the only ones who turned up, and the bonne served us our holiday meal. ‘My father collects pre-Nazi German art about the masses. Though we never met any of those. My mother kept the Käthe Kollwitz drawings on Park Avenue, to show where we stand.’ And the Hampton house was great for benefits. Her mother died, though, of leukemia. Now her father collects Klimts—‘Sexy Austrian dames, with bodies like waterfalls,’ and at first had a mistress who looked like one, then married again, not her. ‘My stepmother, I have nothing against her, except I can’t be in the same house with her.’ When Emmy chokes, is it sentiment or revulsion? ‘She’s a ringer for my mom.’ And her own analyst is advising that if she has no boyfriends it’s because she can’t choose what kind to have. Monied guys, like the only ones she meets, or bruisers from the bottomline South Fork bars, who scare her blue. ‘Better be red—’ she says, her tiny fingers manipulating the wiring into what must be its proper destination. A bomb’s surer than most things. And you don’t need a collection.’
Carey Plumford. At the table she never said much. I see her stretch, strawberry blonde in daisy-print bathing suit, never bikinis, neat sports-girl from the elite of Bermuda. Never wore make-up, toenails like a baby’s. In the hay with boys since she was twelve. Papa, a Sir somebody, suspected nothing. ‘“Dear girl,” he calls me. But my mother, she drinks so you don’t see it, slow but sure. And alcohol makes one wise. She always sneaked me in to see American movies; Dadda forbade me them.’ And raised the roof when she wanted college in the U.S.
I see that roof again. Long, low, sub-British in the not quite tropics, it had needed raising. Solid conservative new, the house could have subbed for Triminghams’s, the traditional shop for tourist goods: blue-and-white Wedgwood ashtrays, silver boarding-school style bracelets. Carey laughed when I told her that. ‘We’re
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