related to them.’ She would be the one who flaunted me at all the pools down there. And took me to visit the family of her former nurse. They had no pool but were the most polite. Their manners to me rustled like tissue paper. Though Carey had worn a skirt, she was out of favor with them. Her last boyfriend before she left the island had been black, like them. ‘That’s how I got away.’
‘I’m not sure I approve of why you’re here, Carey,’ Laura, daughter of the dissident lawyer and the activist says sourly. ‘Your politics consists of giving your father apoplexy. Not that it doesn’t make me jealous; I can never do that. My dad represents every leftist in the book. Though my mother, the peacenik, is the real radical. I was fed ethics before I could speak. And met the masses, even if we had to go to rallies to make contact.’ Laura was the one who knew where to steal all but one of the needed materials—like at her former school’s chem-lab in the Village, where science was taught pragmatically. And it was she who claimed to know best how to make a bomb. But if she had nothing from which to rebel, why was she here? ‘I’m my parents’ best protégé. But they don’t do enough acting out.’ And she is kind of spaced-out by Carey. Nothing lezzie—Laura’s boyfriend from sixth-grade, whose parents own the house we meet at, is the one male allowed in—but like goody-goodies are sometimes entranced by sexpots. ‘So we better keep you for show, Carey doll. You’re so healthy. No analyst even.’ The other three have had some psychiatry as routinely as going to dancing school. And you’re our prize Wasp.’
Carey could afford to laugh; she got top marks like we all did, though she said it was only due to her Brit school habits. And I felt the most comfortable with her; she was the one who didn’t make me feel like their prize. Do I need to say for what? Though in a way we were all on show.
I am beginning to remember it all now. How, down the table somebody’s hands are always pushing in, each pair of hands eager to have a part in this object intended to collide with what its owner has been bred to. They are so bad at it, I can’t take it seriously. Calipers and tongs, cotton waddings and a kitchen clock with its innards all over the table, each time we come. Surely the air down here makes them clumsier, reassuringly slow. Under the table is still the unopened bundle from over the border, delivered early, the one component to be kept to the last.
‘Here it is, chums—the canister sinister!’ our Canadian liaison had said, taking a wrapped oval from her backpack, which she had worn forward, and depositing it carefully. ‘Of course, it may contain only bicarb of soda.’ Since then she had disappeared into her own Quebec operation. ‘Dear God—’ she’d said, surveying the litter of manuals at every chair, ‘you’ll be at this “til the Pope turns Protestant,”’ and at the basement door—for they’d tolerated me only as doorkeeper and gofer—she’d whispered: ‘Might as well have poured that stuff down a drain—they’ll never never. Bonne chance! Ta!’
Half wanting to leave with her, I’d gone back inside.
All three heads are haloed in golden Saturday afternoon light. They are interweaving wires that will make sense and idealism interact chemically. Across the street, in the brownstone opposite, antique lace curtains hang ready for the petard, ignorant of the commune—and bless them. This here is only the parcheesi game that rich girls play.
But was I sent for sandwiches? …
‘Production’s on the cheap, but getting a cast together was no problem,’ Alphonse is saying. ‘Not for this play. Now that half of Europe’s in flames again.’ He hands me a flyer. ‘Director fresh from Russia.… Look at that crowd, must be forty of them. On this peanut stage. And how he handles them. New arrivals too, some his friends. They work now as hairdressers, vendors, anything. This
‘I’m not sure I approve of why you’re here, Carey,’ Laura, daughter of the dissident lawyer and the activist says sourly. ‘Your politics consists of giving your father apoplexy. Not that it doesn’t make me jealous; I can never do that. My dad represents every leftist in the book. Though my mother, the peacenik, is the real radical. I was fed ethics before I could speak. And met the masses, even if we had to go to rallies to make contact.’ Laura was the one who knew where to steal all but one of the needed materials—like at her former school’s chem-lab in the Village, where science was taught pragmatically. And it was she who claimed to know best how to make a bomb. But if she had nothing from which to rebel, why was she here? ‘I’m my parents’ best protégé. But they don’t do enough acting out.’ And she is kind of spaced-out by Carey. Nothing lezzie—Laura’s boyfriend from sixth-grade, whose parents own the house we meet at, is the one male allowed in—but like goody-goodies are sometimes entranced by sexpots. ‘So we better keep you for show, Carey doll. You’re so healthy. No analyst even.’ The other three have had some psychiatry as routinely as going to dancing school. And you’re our prize Wasp.’
Carey could afford to laugh; she got top marks like we all did, though she said it was only due to her Brit school habits. And I felt the most comfortable with her; she was the one who didn’t make me feel like their prize. Do I need to say for what? Though in a way we were all on show.
I am beginning to remember it all now. How, down the table somebody’s hands are always pushing in, each pair of hands eager to have a part in this object intended to collide with what its owner has been bred to. They are so bad at it, I can’t take it seriously. Calipers and tongs, cotton waddings and a kitchen clock with its innards all over the table, each time we come. Surely the air down here makes them clumsier, reassuringly slow. Under the table is still the unopened bundle from over the border, delivered early, the one component to be kept to the last.
‘Here it is, chums—the canister sinister!’ our Canadian liaison had said, taking a wrapped oval from her backpack, which she had worn forward, and depositing it carefully. ‘Of course, it may contain only bicarb of soda.’ Since then she had disappeared into her own Quebec operation. ‘Dear God—’ she’d said, surveying the litter of manuals at every chair, ‘you’ll be at this “til the Pope turns Protestant,”’ and at the basement door—for they’d tolerated me only as doorkeeper and gofer—she’d whispered: ‘Might as well have poured that stuff down a drain—they’ll never never. Bonne chance! Ta!’
Half wanting to leave with her, I’d gone back inside.
All three heads are haloed in golden Saturday afternoon light. They are interweaving wires that will make sense and idealism interact chemically. Across the street, in the brownstone opposite, antique lace curtains hang ready for the petard, ignorant of the commune—and bless them. This here is only the parcheesi game that rich girls play.
But was I sent for sandwiches? …
‘Production’s on the cheap, but getting a cast together was no problem,’ Alphonse is saying. ‘Not for this play. Now that half of Europe’s in flames again.’ He hands me a flyer. ‘Director fresh from Russia.… Look at that crowd, must be forty of them. On this peanut stage. And how he handles them. New arrivals too, some his friends. They work now as hairdressers, vendors, anything. This
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