beach hours, sun and swimming. “You should stick to bikinis, Sara,” Alex even told her. “You look really good.”
Their habitual political controversy abated too: Alex stopped describing the Socialist state of Sara’s dreams in terms of horror, he stopped telling her how she would hate the actuality of Socialism. And Sara did not mention Vietnam, not once.
Everything was fine, until the morning that began with margaritas at the appointed hour, at the bar of the Oceana Hotel, with its louvered view of the sea, its seedy American drunks. The day began there and ended in jail—all clearly Sara’s fault, she having made the contact, all the arrangements.
Once we are out of here Alex will never speak to me again, Sara now thinks, in jail. Well, fuck him, I won’t care. And she knows that for the rest of her life this room will inhabit her mind: the slick dirt floor, here and there worn down to paths, long indentations and holes like basins of dirt. The dim, never varying day or night light. The smells, and the huddled prison population: a legless man with furious, malevolent eyes; skinny ragged women, some with children. Americans, Mexicans, a couple of German kids. The boy and the Florida girl, there fucking. All of that in her mind forever. Becoming her mind. Her unconscious.
In Venice, where Celeste and Charles are spending a week, a part of their glamorous, amazing, beautiful (oh, wonderful!) honeymoon, at American Express Celeste receives a letter from Sara, which she instantly (or almost instantly) decides not to read to Charles.
The end of May: Venice is still all raw with rain, and gray and cold. On the Piazza San Marco, plank walks have been erected to keep all the tourists clear of the water lying there. Lines of tourists: the practical Germans and English who thought to bring raincoats; wet, shivering American kids in their trusting jeans, “hippies,” long-hairedboys and girls with flowers in their hair, even here in Venice, out in the rain. And Charles and Celeste, in their new London-purchased Burberrys. Small, perfectly erect Celeste, taut-faced, her smile a stretch of skin. And loose, comfortably ambling Charles, securely handsome—Charles, who, if bothered by anything relating to his honeymoon, does not look bothered.
In any case, returning from American Express, alone, as she makes her way over small arched bridges, through narrow stone passages that open out onto miraculous squares, stones, tracery, Celeste thinks of the just read letter, now well hidden in her passport case. She thinks of the letter even as almost despite herself her whole soul responds to the beauty, to the sensual complexity of Venice. (Over-stimulated, she thinks, not smiling. Wryly thinking: The irony.)
“I am living with a group of friends here in Berkeley now,” Sara has written. “We are a commune, in the truest sense of that word. We are working together against the war.”
Reading, Celeste for a moment thought, What war? But then quickly remembered Vietnam. Of course Vietnam, where Charles believes that “we” are performing a sad but necessary duty. “What we are doing may at times involve violence,” Sara’s letter continued (so curiously sounding like Charles, whom she has never met). “But whatever happens, Celeste, I want you to know how much I have always appreciated your unfailing generosity to me, and your wonderful love and support when mother was sick. I want you to know that I love you, Celeste. Sara. P.S.—Mexico was awful. It is a beautiful country, with beautiful people, but the man I was with and I did not get along well at all. Basically we have political views that are totally opposed. In fact, I think he is trying to get into the army.”
A strangely stilted letter, Celeste is thinking as she approaches their hotel: the Fenice; they have the most wonderful penthouse suite. It is as though Sara’s whole commune, solemnly, all together had written this letter.
But it is certainly not a
Their habitual political controversy abated too: Alex stopped describing the Socialist state of Sara’s dreams in terms of horror, he stopped telling her how she would hate the actuality of Socialism. And Sara did not mention Vietnam, not once.
Everything was fine, until the morning that began with margaritas at the appointed hour, at the bar of the Oceana Hotel, with its louvered view of the sea, its seedy American drunks. The day began there and ended in jail—all clearly Sara’s fault, she having made the contact, all the arrangements.
Once we are out of here Alex will never speak to me again, Sara now thinks, in jail. Well, fuck him, I won’t care. And she knows that for the rest of her life this room will inhabit her mind: the slick dirt floor, here and there worn down to paths, long indentations and holes like basins of dirt. The dim, never varying day or night light. The smells, and the huddled prison population: a legless man with furious, malevolent eyes; skinny ragged women, some with children. Americans, Mexicans, a couple of German kids. The boy and the Florida girl, there fucking. All of that in her mind forever. Becoming her mind. Her unconscious.
In Venice, where Celeste and Charles are spending a week, a part of their glamorous, amazing, beautiful (oh, wonderful!) honeymoon, at American Express Celeste receives a letter from Sara, which she instantly (or almost instantly) decides not to read to Charles.
The end of May: Venice is still all raw with rain, and gray and cold. On the Piazza San Marco, plank walks have been erected to keep all the tourists clear of the water lying there. Lines of tourists: the practical Germans and English who thought to bring raincoats; wet, shivering American kids in their trusting jeans, “hippies,” long-hairedboys and girls with flowers in their hair, even here in Venice, out in the rain. And Charles and Celeste, in their new London-purchased Burberrys. Small, perfectly erect Celeste, taut-faced, her smile a stretch of skin. And loose, comfortably ambling Charles, securely handsome—Charles, who, if bothered by anything relating to his honeymoon, does not look bothered.
In any case, returning from American Express, alone, as she makes her way over small arched bridges, through narrow stone passages that open out onto miraculous squares, stones, tracery, Celeste thinks of the just read letter, now well hidden in her passport case. She thinks of the letter even as almost despite herself her whole soul responds to the beauty, to the sensual complexity of Venice. (Over-stimulated, she thinks, not smiling. Wryly thinking: The irony.)
“I am living with a group of friends here in Berkeley now,” Sara has written. “We are a commune, in the truest sense of that word. We are working together against the war.”
Reading, Celeste for a moment thought, What war? But then quickly remembered Vietnam. Of course Vietnam, where Charles believes that “we” are performing a sad but necessary duty. “What we are doing may at times involve violence,” Sara’s letter continued (so curiously sounding like Charles, whom she has never met). “But whatever happens, Celeste, I want you to know how much I have always appreciated your unfailing generosity to me, and your wonderful love and support when mother was sick. I want you to know that I love you, Celeste. Sara. P.S.—Mexico was awful. It is a beautiful country, with beautiful people, but the man I was with and I did not get along well at all. Basically we have political views that are totally opposed. In fact, I think he is trying to get into the army.”
A strangely stilted letter, Celeste is thinking as she approaches their hotel: the Fenice; they have the most wonderful penthouse suite. It is as though Sara’s whole commune, solemnly, all together had written this letter.
But it is certainly not a
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