Disint3
A few years went by. Now in a retirement home, Maud was becoming deaf and confusing people. She mistook Reg for Doz and Wren for Siss. They held their laughter back until they were beyond earshot. When Jim, alarmed by news of this confusion, flew home to see his mother, she didn't recognize him:
"You remind me of Freddy but you are too old and fat."
Jim didn't laugh, not even beyond earshot. Married now, Jimmy and Marsha had had a baby girl named Candace. The couple brought her to show Grand Mom and Christy came along too. Marsha stopped in the ladies' room, while Jimmy and Christy, who took the baby, went on to Grand Mom's room. Maud was delighted with her first great grandchild, but how could Jimmy and Christy...? Her astonishment climaxed when "Siss" arrived, took Candace and asked her mother how she liked her baby. This time, they couldn't hold their laughter back and Grand Mom was laughing too although she didn't understood what was so funny. When Nelly came for a visit, they had an enthusiastic conversation, in which Maud understood nothing and pretended to understand everything. Finally she told her how glad she was that she was going to take care of her from then on. Nelly burst out laughing and, since she couldn't stop, never could get Maud to understand. When Siss, Freddy and Allison visited her later the same day, she was eager to tell them about her new attendant, a charming black woman with a scar from the corner of her mouth to her ear... Freddy laughed, Allison smiled and Siss was distressed, a variety of reactions that puzzled Maud. She continued to recognize Siss and Freddy after she forgot who Allison was, but sister and brother realized that she would eventually forget them too. Siss deplored the deterioration, while Freddy tried to reassure her that Mom wasn't suffering. Wasn't she singing songs she remembered from her childhood? She hadn't forgotten everything! Singing them, she would grin and dance as she held on to her walker. All the employees loved her or at least seemed to, since loving patients was a part of their job. Yet this childish glee tormented Siss who, after the loss of her father and her husband, felt increasingly isolated.
She began to embarrass Freddy by putting her hand on his shoulder, slipping her arm under his or around his waste and kissing him on the cheek. Alone with Allison, he complained of this exaggeration, but she laughed at him, teasing him about his charm, even for his own sister. If he had lost his wife, he would be treating his sister the same way. Feeling the need to see his family more often, Jim was coming home three times a year
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and staying three days instead of merely overnight. The affection Siss lavished on him surprised him at first, but then he began to appreciate it. She consoled his melancholy. Intensified by anxiety, her love for her children disturbed them without always inspiring reciprocity. It troubled David, who felt sorry for her, and, although it bothered Reg less, he, like David, reciprocated spontaneously. Less sympathetic than them, Jimmy responded conscientiously, while Christy, the least sympathetic of the five, did little more than her duty. Sabby, who had decided on a career in psychology, diagnosed anxiety and treated her mother with a kindness which, to be fair, was more genuine than professional. Even Mom smiled. She distributed her favor unevenly among the wives and companions of her offspring, adopting Wren, sympathizing with Marsha and pitying Nathan. More cordial than friendly with Suzy, she had fully befriended Janet, who also had her confidence as an associate. Yet the ambiguity of Janet's dual relationship with mother and daughter continued to embarrass Janet herself.
Siss told Janet that she was rendering more valuable service to the company than it could afford to compensate her for. She offered to convert it into a partnership so Janet could share equal responsibility and compensation with her. Gratefully, Janet declined, assuring Siss that she was happy with her present position. Aware that she was less effective than Doz in dealing with the employees, Siss increased her reliance on Nelly who excelled in this job. "The three ladies" of Fossez and Chinski had acquired a reputation in the Kindergarten and in Mapleton for their management style and success. Following Fuss's advice, Siss had hired a junior executive to do routine administration, thus freeing her, Janet and Nelly for more challenging work. The young man had provided for this need adequately, until recently when he left for a position with Intercity Parcel Express, which offered higher pay and more rapid advancement. Now, like Reg, a junior in business administration at ZU, Wren was doing the job during summer vacation when the workload always increased. She would go full time after graduation. In summer, therefore, "the three girls," as they called themselves, invited her to join them for lunch on Wednesday and they took the elevator up to Zhu's talking and laughing all the way. Although it travelled at the same speed in both directions, it seemed to go up slower than it came down. An old friend, Zhu continued to please his guests and tickle their palates, winning recommendations and prizes, attracting numerous and distinguished guests. Mapleton businessmen and women agreed that the observation deck and the restaurant at the top of the Fossez Tower were the most lucrative cash cows in town.
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Although Fossez and Chinski was prospering, Janet reminded Siss of a lesson both had learned in business school: a business that stops expanding will sooner or later contract and contraction might result in collapse during a recession. The company was on a plateau with all the customers it could serve in the warm season and enough to make a profit even in the cold. It had more than enough income to service a reasonable burden of debt, keep employee remuneration at a better than competitive level, repair and maintain its equipment and buildings. It still had no local competition in moving and storing valuable or unwieldy goods, such as artwork from the Museum and stage props from the Auditorium. Despite competition from store-it-yourself firms, Fossez continued to attract as many customers seeking this service as it could accommodate. Household moving, the bulk of its business, left little to be desired despite the competition with Treble and it's contracts with the city and the schools.
Horace Treble had been promoted to mid-level management at National and International and D. P. Score had replaced him. Dennis Froosie had retired as president of the IBLD, which had rewarded him with an apartment in Miami Beach. His neighbors admired him for having committed big crimes and been convicted only of small ones. Suspicion of him and Horace concerning the contract for Doz's murder had declined to an occasional remembrance. Although Greg Distic had failed to organize Fossez, he had supported Dennis through thick and thin, so the union elected him president despite the usual complaints of vote-count fraud. In his place as president of the local in Mapleton, Greg had left Quinlan McQueen, a persistent mediocrity comparable to Score, who collaborated with him in probing Fossez for weaknesses. Horace and Greg had set a goal for them: persuading Mapletonians that "Safer with Fossez, cheaper with Treble" meant "Take your pick."
Siss told Doz about Janet's warning. What could she do to expand the company business? One thing she could do, he replied, was to reach out to the community. Accept invitations to parties, where his friends would welcome her and introduce her to others, but also speak to people she didn't know and take an interest in them. As long as they knew who she was, she didn't have to say anything about the company. There weren't any other Chinskis in Mapleton. Doz had met a man at a cocktail party who raised pigeons. When they separated ten minutes later, he had learned all about pigeons and his new acquaintance, nothing about him except that he worked for Fossez. Two years later, he got a call from the pigeon raiser who teased him about forgetting to say he was the president of Fossez. He
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had heard about that afterwards and later, when he saw he had to move, he decided to be "safer with Fossez." Doz replied that he could move his furniture safely all right, but he didn't know about his pigeons. After a hearty laugh, the new customer said:
"'Your big tough men would pass out from the stench. Don't worry, I will move them myself. I don't trust anybody with my darlings.'"
Siss: "Darlings?"
Doz: "That's what he called them."
Accepting invitations to parties, Siss met Doz's friends, who were happy to see her and introduced her to their friends. She also spoke with people she didn't know, took an interest in them and had interesting conversations. Recognizing her name, most of them asked her about Fossez and Chinski. She was having a good time! She even noticed that her voice had become whispery again and her mirror showed that, thanks to the disappearance of the circles around her eyes, her appearance had improved. She felt encouraged by the sparkle in her hazel eyes, the silver halo around her head and her slender figure which, although it still not had rounded out, had straightened up. She wondered whether these unexpected improvements had resulted from her efforts or the effects of her social success. Since none of Doz's clothes, except his Scottish sport coat, remained on his side of the closet, she cultivated a gay salesman Suzy had introduced her to at Sedgwick and Crompton. Harold, who admired her figure, eagerly cooperated in helping her to buy clothes that enhanced her appearance without trying to force it into a stylish mould. She was turning heads, both men's and women's, getting compliments, some more daring than others, even overhearing jealous irony in mutters and whispers. To what avail, however?
Although she enjoyed her personal success, she didn't see much improvement in business. Besides, as she complained to Doz, her social activity resulted in an unforeseen annoyance. Men all ages were courting her, along with her income and wealth. One, who may have been thirty, resembled Perseus with his clothes on. She tried motherly discouragement, but, guessing her tactic, he claimed that she reminded him of his mother whom he had lost when only five years old. Thanking him ironically for the compliment, she replied that she had her hands full with five children, two daughters-in-law, two companions, one godmother-in-law and one grandchild so far. He faced this barrage unflinchingly:
"How wonderful! I have always envied members of big families. I never had much of a family myself."
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"I hope you don't think families are necessarily happy because they are big. Aren't small families happy when the parents and the children love each other?"
"Of course! But wouldn't the introduction of a new in-law who has the sincerest affection for the others increase this happiness?"
"That's easier said than done. Children, for instance, often resent the remarriage of a widowed parent. The new spouse seems like an intruder to them."
The young man, whose name she had forgotten, smiled a smile that usually reassured women, but it revealed a measure of self-confidence that irritated Siss.
"Sociologists are finding that couples are inherently temporary in our species. With the disappearance of traditional constraints, they are separating after ten or fifteen years and forming new couples. The new partners accept the children born of the old ones. The children benefit from the devotion of both their social and their biological parents. The result is a network of relations that amounts to an extended family. This tendency is apparently as natural to man as it is to birds that nest with a different mate every spring. Although religious leaders have long opposed it, some are beginning to recognize its validity and adjust their doctrine to accommodate it. Isn't that true of the Free Faith Assembly?"
So he had checked up on her! "Yes, the Faithful accept this mobility on the grounds that some couples will always find that, despite their initial convictions, they can't live together any longer. They do expect the separated partners to treat each other fairly and cooperate in taking care of their children. But couples who have never been tempted to separate feel at home in the FFA too. [Smile:] Likewise widows who regret their husbands! Doz is an enthusiastic member of the Assembly despite the debt he feels to the Catholic sisters who raised him."
Though puzzled by this present tense, Perseus with his clothes on knew better than to question it. He was trying show that she hadn't discouraged him by the expression on his face, but a tightening of muscles revealed that he usually encountered less resistance. In a tone of voice that had almost always swept such resistance away, he asked:
"I can't imagine anything more tragic than the loss of a partner with whom I had been living in a happy family. Yet single survivors often have long lives still to live and eventually find another partner who makes them happy again and has the approval of their children. Treated with kindness and affection, children usually accept their new father or mother and often with enthusiasm. I have seen it happen to friends of mine."
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Laughter: "If you nested with a different mate every spring and raised another brood, you wouldn't even have to worry about last year's offspring."
Disconcerted: "... You seem pessimistic to me. I think you have a brilliant future ahead of you."
Merry laughter: "You sound like a fortune cookie. I will ask Doz what he thinks when I visit the cemetery tomorrow."
"You should have seen his face."
"I have seen the faces of people you said such things to. But maybe you aren't treating your admirers fairly, maybe they admire you more than your money."
"I can't kick you down there."
"That's one of the things I miss the most."
"I didn't kick hard enough."
"Whether you kicked me under a table or in bed, whether you were awake or asleep... "
"Oh Doz, stop! You are going to make me cry and people will stare. They already think I'm crazy."
"I don't blame your admirers. I'm one of them."
"Doz! Stop it!"
"How about Mark?"
"What about Mark?"
"Hasn't he always admired you?"
"No one has ever had more respect for both of us!"
"I know. But when you need an escort... ?"
"I ask Mark. When people invite me to a dinner party, they invite him too. He's kind and considerate, a perfect gentleman... but he's our friend, not my boyfriend!"
"He used to say he had never gotten married because he couldn't find another Siss."
"He doesn't say that any more, it might sound like a hint."
"But he would... "
"Sure he would! He asked me."
"Good for him!"
"What do you mean: 'good for him'? I told him he was my best friend and I didn't want to lose him."
"... Siss, you have been visiting me for a few years now. I appreciate that and I will always love you, always, but I don't have anything left to
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love you with. Mark does. He would make you happy. Maybe you should think of yourself. You have the rest of your life to live."
"Doz!... " She lowered her voice. "We had an argument about that. If you tell me again, everybody in this cemetery is going to know about it. Now, you behave!"
"... Are you still going to mass on Sunday morning?"
"Yes, why?"
"I think you are fooling yourself."
"Fooling myself?"
"You want to believe that I'm in heaven, that you will join me there, that we will be together for ever. Now that I'm dead, I can tell you there isn't any heaven or hell; there never was any pregnant virgin or resurrected son of God. Two thousand years of demagoguery and wishful thinking!"
"Dead? The hell you are!"
"What?"
"How could you talk to me like this if you weren't alive?"
"You are talking to your memory of me. I don't exist any more."
"I am not! I'm... I'm... [Tears:] there! Now you have done it! People will think I'm a sentimental idiot... Oh Doz! I feel so desperate! so desperate!"
"So Mark has what it takes to love me!" she muttered to herself the rest of the morning. The secretaries were smiling at each other. Surprizing one of these smiles, Siss smiled back. Mark had always been a good friend; a good, faithful, loyal friend. Why hadn't he gotten married? She and Doz had often wondered. Women liked him, some rushed him and some deserved his consideration, yet he never encouraged them. Nor did he apparently frequent any gays. His routine joke about another Siss pleased her. The director of the Mapleton Museum, he was refined without snobbery, eloquent without verbosity, kind without sentimentality, incisive without malice, gentle but never effete. Still handsome, he was aging gracefully and keeping his tummy in with discipline and exersize. He had a pleasant voice and, although he loved to discuss art, he didn't mind discussing other things too and did so interestingly and entertainingly. Congenial with all of Siss's family and friends, even Jim, he treated Christy as fondly as an uncle, his niece. He admired her talent and she appreciated his encouragement. A valuable member of the Fossez and Chinski board, he had negotiated the contract to move and store Museum artwork with Fuss and Doz. Aware that Doz was dating Siss, he had said nothing to Fuss. Yes, Mark had almost everything it took to love Siss and, if you included sex, he could probably do that too, though never as well as Doz.
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Contemptuous of prudery, she admitted to herself that she missed that part of her life with Doz too and there were times when she felt a desperate need for it; yes, a desperate need. Yet the thought of sex with anyone but Doz disgusted her, revolted her, almost made her feel sick. Anything more than a kiss on the cheek would spoil her friendship with Mark, maybe even ruin it. Poor Mark! Wholly sincere, he made the most discreet, subtle and tactful overtures, which she couldn't help appreciating and admiring. What a privilege to be courted by him! When he proposed to her, however, she thanked him and replied that she didn't want to lose the best friend she had.
Doz: "Did you get around to joining the Kindergarten?"
"No, I haven't. Something else always seems to get in the way. Maybe I better put it at the top of my list."
"Talk to Meg. She's the diva of the Kindergarten."
"All right. We have a meeting of the board the day after tomorrow. I will have to keep Thursday noon free from now on."
"It will be well worth your time, Siss. They are the most successful business men and women in Mapleton. All my friends will welcome you, most of them already know you and they will introduce you to the others. You will learn a lot, you will have fun and the Cloverleaf serves a good lunch."
"Lots of salt, calories, cholesterol, everything I should stay away from."
"It's just once a week, and there's a section on the menu for 'Delicate Palates.'"
"'Delicate Palates!' I will feel a little funny sitting there. I don't know what they will expect of me."
"Just be yourself and they will be delighted. If you have a question to ask, ask it. If you have a comment to make, make it, especially if it's funny. And don't be afraid to disagree with people, I know you will be tactful. Don't worry, Siss! They will love you."
"I have enough people loving me... All right, I will join the Tinhorn Impresario Kindergarten and I hope it will help business. Anything else?"
"Have you joined AAMSE?"
"Yes, but I haven't attended any meetings yet."
"Put the next one on your calendar. I'm sure you remember Pierre Sauvageot. He stayed with us when he visited Mapleton. Call or write him, tell him you will be there and ask his advice about where to stay, which sections to attend, etc. He's another admirer of yours... "
"Do I need another admirer?"
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"Don't tell me you mind! He will help you make a lot of valuable contacts. Talk to people, speak up, ask questions, make comments and objections. Don't be afraid to state and defend your opinions."
"... That might do more harm than good."
"I doubt it. A few Thursdays at the Cloverleaf and you will be able to handle AAMSE."
"I hope so, Doz. I hope so."
She had even greater success at Kindergarten lunches and the annual meeting of AAMSE than at cocktail and dinner parties. But wasn't it just the same kind? People listened when she spoke, laughed when she said something funny, approached her, guessed her wishes and offered their services, enjoyed her company. Weren't they taking less interest, however, in what she said than how she said it? Her opinions received vague approval and applause, but seldom inspired comments or incited objections, not even when, impatient with this response, she sought to provoke her listeners. She found them much too polite, too respectful. Not Meg, of course. When she addressed the Kindergarten to welcome the new member, Meg attributed her success in business to getting younger while everyone else, including "yours truly," was getting older. Since the CEO of Fossez and Chinski blushed like a teenager, Meg's left-handed compliment brought the house down. From then on, Siss enjoyed inexhaustible popularity at the Cloverleaf Grill on Thursdays, although it derived more from her charm than her ideas about business. At the AAMSE meeting, Pierre throttled his effervescence for fear that people might think he was making a pass at his friend's widow, but he praised her courage and skill in "picking up the baton and running with it." He introduced her to everyone important, including the current president of the Association, and she enjoyed the same kind of popularity as in the Kindergarten. Even Horace Treble approached her, reminded her who he was and managed to make a better impression than ever before, although Siss hardly forgot that he might have had a hand in murdering Doz. Following Doz's advice, she discussed business, raised her hand in assemblies and stood up when recognized to ask questions, make comments or objections, but she noticed that her listeners had nothing to say when she sat down. No one agreed or disagreed, as they usually did when others said something. The contrast between her popularity and her influence plagued her all the way back to Mapleton. Instead of going home, she drove to the office where, on her computer, she checked the company's performance, comparing the weeks in the present month and the previous two with each other and with the same weeks in the previous year. Performance had improved in both cases, but not so much that she could credit it to her social and professional outreach.
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Her conservatism, she recognized, contrasted with Doz’s resourcefulness, her caution, with his daring, her frugality with his generosity. A few timid attempts to innovate had discouraged her at the earliest indication of failure and she had abandoned them before they had had a reasonable chance to succeed, as Janet, Nelly and Easy had told her. Yet she perceived that most of the people she met at the Kindergarten and the AAMSE meeting were just as cautious as she was. Her ideas bored them because they resembled their own, while daring and risky ventures that resulted in extraordinary and lucrative success fascinated them. The press sought, enhanced and privileged these stories, lionizing their often doubtful heroes. Since Siss's charm seemed to groom her for such a role, she disappointed a public conditioned to expect such exploits. Although Doz conceded this conclusion, he assured her that, if she continued to manage Fossez and Chinski well, her influence would increase and business would improve. He urged her to persist in attending the Kindergarten and AAMSE meetings. Patience would eventually reward her efforts. Meanwhile, he suggested, why not volunteer for the Community Fund? Fossez and Chinski would certainly benefit from her participation.
While accepting her offer to participate, the current president of the Fund seemed unenthusiastic. When she received her list, she saw that the organizers had loaded it with people likely to refuse or unable to make a significant contribution. Evy and Easy explained that Old Mapleton had reappropriated the Fund as one of its rightfully exclusive domains. Like all Mapletonians, Siss knew of this informal yet cohesive remnant of nineteenth-century wealth, influence and pride.
Evy: "We never see them in our restaurant, our prices aren't high enough."
Easy: "They don't discriminate against blacks, they just ignore them."
Siss: "The widow of a black Fund president must have delighted them!"
Resentful, she devoted every minute of her leisure to solicitation, cajoling her prospects with her whispery voice and, to her own surprise, coaxing water from stone. With a skill she hadn't realized she had, she was sweet-talking reluctance into willingness and hesitations into pledges. Eager for revenge, she invited her new admirers to remember her on the comment
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line of their check. Confronted with the evidence, the president of the Fund awarded her the prizes for the greatest number of new contributors and the greatest amount of money raised, both of which he recognized as records. Yet Siss received more congratulations than opportunities, while he and his friends elected one of them president for the next year. Her success did result in an invitation to appear on "Dollars and Sense," the business program on Channel Eight. The enthusiasm of the journalist who interviewed her and the approval of viewers who called or wrote tended to confirm her suspicion that she had pleased them more than she had convinced them.
"How was the interview on 'Dollars and Sense?'"
"They like your wife better than her opinion."
After graduating from the MU School of Business, David got a job with the Postal Service in Mammoth and Suzy, recommended by Janet, got one with Midwest Insurance. She decided that it was time to get married, so she coaxed him into proposing to her. He did it with the enthusiastic conviction that he had made the decision himself. Everyone smiled and no one said anything. The marriage took place in June, of course, and in Mammoth, where the family and friends of the Whus and the Chinskis assembled for a wedding, a banquet and a ball. Generous but not lavish, Reginald and Grace Whu insisted on putting Siss up and made her feel at home, yet free to go and come as she liked. Grace invited Siss to tea upon her arrival. Instead of cooing over each other's child, they admitted the faults of their own that might endanger the marriage. A clever and charming girl -- "beautiful" Siss corrected -- Suzy had her ambitions, was determined to realize them and -- Grace frowned -- succeeded too easily for her own good. She sincerely loved David, but her love seemed more rational than emotional. David suited her ambition, indeed he encouraged it, even at his own expense. Taking David aside once, Grace had told him he had to assert himself instead of letting Suzy manipulate him.
"You should have seen the expression on his face!"
"I already saw it when Doz and I told him the same thing in front of Suzy. It happened in our kitchen." Grace hadn't heard the story, so Siss told it.
"I'm glad you were frank with her. She has an uncanny way of getting him to make her decisions."
"I could give you a good example... "
Smiling, Grace leaned over and touched her arm. "Let me guess: David thought he was proposing."
Siss laughed: "he was bragging. I didn't have the heart to tell him... I'm glad they are finally getting married. I can't get used to young couples just living together."
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"I can't either. I hope they will have children and make a success of it."
"They have as good a chance as any young couple and [touching Grace's arm] they have good examples to follow."
"You know, Siss, my parents and Reginald's arranged our marriage and yet we couldn't be happier together. When we need to take Suzy down a step, we tease her about that and it makes her furious."
"What would have happened to us if Mom hadn't found out and talked Dad into it? A black orphan immigrant employee! She had to run after him, two or three miles!"
"... I told Suzy it would be unfair to David not to have at least one child and even more unfair to leave all the responsibility for raising it to him. As usual, she listened politely, nodded sweetly and gave me an angelic look."
"... I told David he should insist on having one and sharing the responsibility with her. He is all too prone to take everything upon himself."
Touching her arm: "If you and I nag together, maybe they will listen."
Touching her arm: "I can't think of anybody I would rather nag with."
Brides and mothers go to an awful lot of trouble to make their wedding unique and yet weddings resemble each other in their most trivial details. Although ugly girls often become excellent wives and mothers, they also insist on wedding gowns designed to exhibit beauties they don't have. Against her mother's advice, on the other hand, Suzy insisted on one that hid the beauties she did have. Wrapped in a virginal cloud of tulle, she looked dumpy despite her graceful figure. It would have enhanced the appearance of a tall, skinny, bony girl, but it covered her magnificent shoulders, arms and legs. Most of her black hair faded to a shadow behind her veil, a ridiculous accessory in her case. Fortunately, this disguise couldn't spoil her magnificent complexion or her emerald eyes, which nonetheless betrayed her discomfort and her determination to appear otherwise. After three coupes of Veuve Cliquot so far, the ZU party queen reassembled her tipsy courtiers around her and reigned over them with encouragement and appreciation of their jokes and antics in her husky voice. Reverting to his old role, the prince consort swallowed his pride and labored to show his serenity. The party within the party had begun to shock the other guests when Reginald invited Siss to dance. Since he never smiled, you never knew how seriously to take what he said.
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"The trouble with children is that they grow up."
"I know, I have some."
"You can't spank them any more."
"Yes, and they still need it."
"Mine right now for instance"
"You have to spank her figuratively."
"What would you recommend?"
"You have to use your imagination."
"I don't have any when it comes to women."
Siss laughed: "You mean you have a message from Grace."
He nodded: "You have an attractive daughter and two attractive daughters-in-law. David is just standing there looking helpless. If they ask him to dance, others will follow. Suzy will get a worse... I mean a better spanking than we ever gave her when she was a little girl."
Siss sent Sabby, Wren and Marsha, with whom David was happy to escape and eager to dance. After one request from Siss, Tom-Tom sent his daughter Ashley and after another, Christy sent the pretty neighbor she had introduced David to years ago. Two of Suzy's high-school companions followed and David, who had drunk three coupes of Champaign too, enjoyed their company. Suzy's eyes began to focus on him, her brows to knit and finally her grin to sag. Siss and Grace traded conspiratorial smiles. Suddenly the queen abandoned her court, hurried to the powder room, jerked her gown off tearing it in a few places and, over her head, slipped a green silk dress decorated with bamboo shoots that seemed to waver in the wind of her anger. She was turning back and forth to admire herself in the mirror.
"Suzy: may I take some pictures, please?"
She spun around, making her skirt fly up: "Christy!"
The Whu's family and friends had wondered who the big homely blond girl taking pictures was.
"Oh she's the youngest Chinski child."
"They say she's quite an artist."
After making a fool of herself, Suzy realized that Christy and her camera would restore her dignity. She had learned to model clothes during her summer employment with Sedgwick and Crompton. Swishing her bamboo shoots, she went through the elegant paces that fascinate both men and women, though for different reasons. Christy was shooting abundantly on all sides and from every angle. She even asked Suzy to repeat certain
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movements that particularly interested her. Five or ten minutes of this collaboration warmed the relations between them after Christy's resentment of Suzy's domination of David and Suzy's resentment of Christy's resentment.
Imagine Suzy's delight a few days later when she received Christy's selection of her digital photos by e-mail attachment in a condominium on Kauai, from where you could see palm trees swaying in the breeze and surf rolling in from the ocean! She ran to the bathroom, yanked David out of the shower and rushed him to their laptop, dripping, laughing and protesting:
"Somebody will see me!"
"If you mean women, they will be jealous."
"Hey! Christy's really good!"
"How about me?"
"You? Oh you are all right."
"All right?" She chased him around the sofa.
"I hope nobody down there has any binoculars."
He grabbed her and laid her down on the sofa.
"Hey! You are messing my clothes up."
"I'm going to mess you up too."
Afterwards, they were lying together catching their breath.
"That was our best wedding present!"
"Yes, thanks!"
"Why are you thanking me?"
"I thought you meant... "
"No, you idiot! Christy's photos."
They rented an apartment halfway up a tower with a window from which they could admire downtown Mammoth. Christy gave them one of the paintings she had derived from her photos of Suzy modeling her bamboo dress. Spontaneously, they agreed to hang it on the wall of their living room. For once, Suzy's perception was naïve and David's, pertinent, since she admired herself and he, the swaying of the bamboo shoots in the wind of the swishing silk. She didn't notice that Christy had subordinated her hair, face, flesh and figure to the stalks and foliage of the bamboo.
"It's beautiful," said Reginald, "but is it Suzy?"
"Of course it's me, Dad!" she complained.
"Yes, I recognize you!" Grace conceded ironically.
"She's in harmony with her environment," observed David tactfully.
Reginald: "Who is swishing the bamboo? Suzy or the wind?"
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"Dad!"
Grace, laughing: "What a wonderful artist Christy is!"
A few of their other guests expressed the same opinion, but most of them settled for vague admiration.
After the excitement of finding and furnishing the apartment, they led an active life that took them off on a tangent away their families. Mapleton and even Zenia seemed far away although they could drive across the state line in a half hour and reach Mapleton in a few hours. Friends made at ZU, MU, MI and the PS, as they called them, occupied their leisure. They saw them at parties, concerts, plays and other functions. Work and play rivaled for their time. If you could believe what both of them swore, they were sharing household chores equally. As everyone saw, however, David was accepting more and more of them. The PS let you leave at five whatever you were doing, while MI expected you to stay until you had finished your current task, which sometimes kept you until six or later. Occasionally the boss would even ask you late in the day to do something that couldn't wait until tomorrow. Thus David had the time to stop at the supermarket, the cleaners, time to get the roast started, run the vacuum cleaner, etc. Since he willingly accepted these tasks, Suzy asked him to do others that she didn't have time for and these exceptions became the rule by tacit consent. In fact David liked shopping, running errands, cooking, cleaning and fixing things. At first, he dusted high and she dusted low, but soon he was bending over as well as stretching without giving it an extra thought. When they gave their first dinner parties, they deliberated, planned, shopped, cooked and worried together. Despite novice mishaps, they were all successful and particularly because the couple, who seemed to suit each other perfectly, delighted their guests. Those who returned for another party, however, regretted that, while she was entertaining them, she would stop to ask him:
"David, see if the roast is done, please."
"David, take the salad out of the refrigerator, please."
"David, uncork the wine, please"
before continuing to entertain them. They enjoyed her company, but they liked his too; they liked her assertiveness, but they liked his modesty too; they listened to her willingly, but they wanted to hear him too. By assuming the dominant role and relegating him to the subordinate one, she spoiled their pleasure. Yet no one dared to hint his disapproval.
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Siss and Grace soon noticed how the difference in character between the David and Suzy tended both to unite and separate them. Both husband and wife liked their new jobs, but he liked his because it required him to do interesting work in a reasonable amount of time and earn fair compensation, while she liked hers because it drove her to do more and better than that. She enjoyed the challenge of her superiors' expectations and competition with fellow junior executives and rival companies, all of which served as a constant excuse to shift domestic burdens to him. She salved her conscience by having her salary, higher than his and more frequently raised, deposited in their joint account. He and his mother appreciated her generosity, but she regretted that it increased his subordination. While David admired Suzy's ability and ambition, he regretted the reduction of his leisure which, after a day of hard work well done, he would have liked to devote to reading, listening to music, watching a film, etc. He also regretted that she didn't have more time to share these pleasures with him and she did too, but her job came first. He considered their relations with friends a recreation and she, a professional opportunity, hence an increasing conflict over which ones to invite and which invitations to accept. When they argued over this conflict, she proposed a compromise: invite the guest or accept the invitation she preferred this time and she would reciprocate next time. The next time, however, she felt the need to invite another promising guest or accept another promising invitation, so she pleaded for postponing her part of the bargain. David began to doubt that she would keep these promises. Soon his resentment and her guilty conscience were poisoning the relations between them. They were speaking to each other less and less for fear of an unpleasant response, sleeping more and more each on his side of the bed to avoid equivocal contact. Yet they suffered from this alienation, even Suzy who continued to flirt with other men, but without encouraging them further. When she did it in front of David, however, the humiliation bit even more deeply than before.
After a dinner party, Suzy was rinsing the dishes and David, placing them in the dishwasher, the kind of job he did particularly well. Everyone admired his ability to fit dissimilar objects into an irregular space. Despite his protests, she always showed their guests the closet where he stowed the tools and hardware he had already accumulated. He would have preferred admiration for something less trivial. Suzy had displayed the closet that evening, lavishing more praise on him than usual, hoping that he would forgive her for inviting her guests once again. His embarrassment didn't keep him from noticing her zeal and guessing the motive behind it. Now, as she rinsed the dishes and he put them in the dishwasher, she suddenly asked:
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"David?"
The sweetness of the tone, which he hadn't heard in weeks, moved him as it always had. He looked up at her without knowing how to reply.
"Where would you like to spend our vacation?"
Inspecting the dishes and glasses in the dishwasher, he sighed.
She laughed a laugh he hadn't heard for weeks either.
He looked up at her again, suspiciously this time.
"You are the only man I know who sighs."
He smiled too, but shyly: "I guess it sounds effeminate."
Ironically: "No! My husband is not effeminate!" She embraced him from behind and raised him to a standing position. "Where?"
He turned around and hugged her. "It doesn't matter as long as... "
"As long as there are no insurance people, no actuaries, no investment officers, no businessmen... "
"How can you be sure?"
"I will tell everybody that a friend offered us his sailboat and we will decide where to sail it only after we are out on the ocean."
"That isn't your kind of vacation, nobody will believe you."
"It isn't yours either. Everybody will know that, but, when they say it, I will just laugh and they have to leave it at that."
Ten days later, they were doing the dishes again:
"How about a cabin overlooking a fiord?"
"Hunh?"
"We don't know how to sail a sailboat."
"Oh that! A cabin instead of a boat, a fiord instead of the ocean... "
"Near enough to get there, far enough to get away... "
"Norway?"
"Where else?"
"Just the two of us."
"Just the two of us."
She hugged him: "Maybe you could look and see if any are available and how much they cost."
"I already have."
"You have? Did you find any?"
"Most of them are too big for us and some don't even have running water."
"Unh!"
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"I found one small enough for us and it's up-to-date."
"Can we afford it?"
He shrugged: "About a thousand a week for three weeks. Another thousand for a round trip to Oslo. A few thousand more to rent a car. We will have to buy food too. No, we can't afford it, but we can't afford not to."
Guilty look: "No, I guess we can't."
David made the reservations, the down payments, the plans, the preparations. Suzy agreed, cooperated, applauded and even helped. Together they inspected the photo of the cabin, read the description, examined the map, skimmed guidebooks and dreamed. An ideal vacation, just the two of them, a cabin with a view of the Nordfiord, a car to explore the fiords, the forests, the mountains, the glaciers, the farms, the villages. They agreed to keep it a secret except for their Moms, who welcomed the news and sent checks for a thousand dollars. Siss and Grace had interpreted their exaggerated reassurances as evidence of increasing dissension. Night overtook them on the route from Lillehammer to Utvik, bathing the landscape in a shadowy glow. When the Nordfiord came into view, it overwhelmed them. Although it was around midnight, they stopped, got out and admired it with an arm around each other. So what if they looked like a photo in a tour catalogue! Since they couldn't reach the cabin until well after the elderly owners' bedtime, they followed their daughter's instructions in English, parking the car, finding the key and entering. Exhausted, they undressed and went to bed at once.
Entangled under the comforter, they yearned for sleep. Soon he was snoring, so she thumped him, which only silenced him a few seconds before he resumed. If she could only turn the sun off! Tossing and turning, she tried to snuggle up to him cozily enough to relax and sleep. Despite her efforts, she couldn't find the right position. Grating on her nerves, his snoring began to degrade his innocence to impudence. Rolling fitfully to the other side, she let her feet, knees, hips and elbows flail, but they only felt like love pats to him. Damn! The gloom was brightening, yet he snored blissfully on. Lying on her back, she counted the planks on the ceiling until they blurred and she felt a tear slipping coolly down each cheek. She bolted out of bed letting the mattress heave, which only rolled him over on his other side. On he snored! How could he sleep with the sun in his eyes? It was shining through the shade now. Turning her back on him, she wandered around on bare feet in her nightgown. The big window in the big room attracted her. The fiord was lurking dark and
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mysterious down below, while the mountain on the other side gleamed in the early light. They were even more beautiful than the photos she had seen and the descriptions she had read. But she could only find one fellow human being in all that landscape, a fisherman in a tiny boat: a few miles away? Crowded by evergreens, a few farms scattered along the vast slope on the other side. Two big sheep stood motionless twenty meters away downhill. Next door, Suzy saw the frame house occupied by the owners. Everybody must be asleep. But how many were there? Even if all of them had been in view, she could probably have counted them on her fingers. Only now did she recognize the anxiety creeping into her mind. To the bathroom mirror she fled seeking the reassurance of her reflection. Bloodshot eyes stared back, what a mess her hair was! how pale she looked! and that frown! Raising her hairbrush and tilting her head, she hesitated, then put the brush back down. Throw cold water on her face? Hey! It was really cold! Well, so what? David was going to discover another Suzy, a Suzy all the more exciting because he had never seen her before.
He was lying diagonally across the bed with a foot sticking out from under the comforter at the nearest corner and his head, at the opposite one. He had stopped snoring. The heat of the sun had made him throw the covers off his back, which glowed soft, smooth and firm in the sunlight. Suzy admired the taper of his body from his shoulders to his waist, the relief of his muscles and structure of his backbone. Flung across the bed as if abandoned, his body rose and fell with his breathing. His cheek lay on his arm and stubble decorated the youthful innocence of his face.
'He's my Perseus!'
Climb on his back or tickle his foot? Both always had the same effect, but she already felt exhausted and a little nauseous. Slowly, she sat down on the mattress, admiring him. As if on its own, her finger reached, touched the tip of his nose and withdrew. His hand swept by his nose to chase the fly away, but his eyes didn't open and his breathing continued. Then her finger approached his right eyebrow and, after circling hesitantly, stroked it towards the top of his nose. Immediately, his finger brushed it back towards his ear and his eyes stayed shut. Her lips approached his ear and blew a puff into it. He shivered, put his finger in it, withdrew it and rolled away from her without waking up. Then she sighed softly and he sat up startled:
"What was that for?"
She laughed, shrugged and looked sad.
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He threw his arms around her and pulled her towards him, but she merely let him do it.
"Hey, what's wrong?"
"You slept pretty well!"
"You didn't?"
Another shrug and sigh.
"How come?"
"I don't know. Jetlag maybe." Poking him in the ribs: "I never heard anybody snore like that. You sounded happy."
"I'm sorry! I must have kept you awake."
"Maybe it wasn't the noise... You just sounded happy."
"You mean... you weren't?"
A shrug.
"Come on, Suzy! Where hurts?"
"I don't know... Maybe a headache coming on."
"Must be jetlag." Swinging his legs around and sitting beside her. "How about some coffee?"
"All right." She gave him the kind of kiss that showed him she didn't want any more than that."
Puzzled, he got up, threw his clothes on and hurried to the kitchen.
More rustic than they had expected, the cabin nonetheless excited a spirit of adventure in him. It was cold at night and chilly in the daytime, and the wood stove in the living/dining room heated only that space, but the gas range in the kitchen broke the chill there, the comforter kept them warm in bed and the sun warmed the primitive shower when it shone on that corner of the cabin in the morning. Though small, worn and rusty, the range, the refrigerator and the sink were clean and adequate. David had no trouble striking a match, turning the bottled gas on, lighting a burner, shaking the match to extinguish it, wetting it under the tap and throwing it in garbage while adjusting the level of the flame. Suzy had trouble taking those steps in the right order, but, after a scare or two, he had her trained. He quickly learned to jiggle the latch on the refrigerator door to keep it closed and give the hot-water faucet a hard extra twist to stop it from dripping, lessons that Suzy forgot a few times. Amazed by his ingenuity, she felt dependent on him and rather enjoyed it. Although she worried about the rusty streak worn in the porcelain of the sink by dripping from the faucet, he told her that it was unlikely to do any harm. Looking for a vacuum cleaner, they found a broom and a dustpan, which David used to clean up some dirt they had tracked in the night before.
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Her: "I have never used a broom."
Him: "Neither have I... You have to do it gently so you won't stir the dust up."
Though worn, the furniture was clean, solid and practical. If bad weather kept you inside, a motley assortment of dog-eared books, brochures, magazines, etc. in Norwegian, German and English offered diversion and, in some cases, entertainment or information. Did it really matter that few had been published more recently than five years ago? It depended on what previous occupants of the cabin had left behind. "Krimis," as the landlady called them, predominated. After hearing such words, David decided that, if Fru Sørensen didn't understand your English, your German might do. Greta and Hans cheerfully showed them everything they needed to know with a German word from her and a Norwegian one from him. When they were alone, David and Suzy called them Hansel and Gretel.
Right from the start, David's enthusiasm and energy contrasted with Suzy's apathy and lethargy. Whether he offered her another cup of coffee or proposed an excursion to see the glacier at the end of the fiord, he had to guess whether she accepted or declined by the look in her eye and the tone of her voice. No woman mastered the art of saying yes negatively and no affirmatively as well as she did. The indulgence with which she consented to his every desire and her reluctance to admit that she had any herself troubled him. When they came upon beautiful scenery in the car, he asked her if she would like to stop, get out, take a look or, occasionally, a walk.
"OK," she always replied half-heartedly.
He would have preferred reluctance or refusal, except when he chose an unpleasant place on purpose, such as a cement factory, hoping to make her laugh. She merely smiled. Driving along the shore of a fiord, one day, they stopped beside a grassy strip between the road and the water where some small white goats were grazing. They started out on a walk, but they had hardly gone a hundred yards before she said she was tired and would wait for him in the car. Alone, he considered that she often complained about being tired: was she really just bored? Bored with Norway? How could Norway bore her? Her attitude, which he had never seen in her before, moved him to count their blessings in search of one that didn't suit her. Maybe their isolation, a blessing to him, was a curse to her. Wherever they went, whatever they did, they saw few other people. Yet she had proposed to spend their vacation somewhere they could be alone together and now they were alone together. Although she had made the proposal to make him happy, maybe she was finding that it made her unhappy. How could he enjoy it if she didn't enjoy it with him?
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Then he had an idea. Suzy was sitting on the back seat of the car with the door open and three curious goats beside her. While she was petting them, one of them nibbled at her bosom. Squirming and laughing, she pushed the bearded little snout away. She hadn't noticed David, who recognized the ring of pleasure in her laugh.
"You have made some friends."
"I hope they aren't Lesbians."
The same goat jumped up on her lap and Suzy laughed even harder, but with a note of protest.
"Take her off of me. She may be cute, but she has sharp little hooves ow!"
Gently, David lifted the goat, which looked surprized by all the fuss they were making. Suzy stood up and brushed the dirt off her jeans as if she had enjoyed the incident. How nice it would be to have a pet goat if only they had a yard to keep her in! Suzy was in her best humor. When they stopped for gas and food, she made conversation with the locals, encouraging them to use their English. The hamlet consisted of a general store, a restaurant on a pier and a few houses, but it was the most important conglomeration within a radius of fifty kilometers. While Suzy was shopping for food, David went to the tourist information bureau in a corner of the store on the pretext of asking about boating and fishing. What he did ask the tall pretty blond, however, was where she and her friends met for entertainment. He couldn't have found a better informed and more enthusiastic source. She pointed at the restaurant on the pier, where she said you could eat, drink, listen to music and dance. She and her friends celebrated the end of their work week there, she hinted as if she hadn't noticed his wedding band. As usual, this overture embarrassed him.
The encounter with the goats relieved Suzy's aversion to their lonely environment only until they left Mörkvatten. On the way home, she relapsed into her previous melancholy, responding to everything he said by an indifferent word or two. How miserable she looked! Never at a loss for distractions, however, David wondered what people were bringing back to their cars beside the road by the bucketful. He stopped, got out, went over to a couple, greeted them and admired their buckets, which were full of raspberries and blueberries. Enthusiastic, they told him how plentiful blueberries were on the high ground (pointing uphill) and raspberries, on the low ground (pointing downhill). They offered David a bucketful, but he
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thanked them and said he preferred to pick some himself. Back in the car, he found that Suzy had cheered up and she eagerly accepted his proposal to go berry picking tomorrow. Now he remembered that, near the cabin, he had seen raspberry thickets along the shore and blueberry plants on the slope above them. Why drive off somewhere else? Although she conceded the point, it disappointed her. Picking raspberries along the shore, they ignored the heat and humidity, since a breeze blew off the water from time to time. No breeze penetrated the woods on the slope where they had to climb for blueberries, however, so it was sweaty labor. They had a little argument whenever he wanted to go where they would find more berries or she, where they would find people like the friendly couple yesterday. After filling a pot with raspberries, they filled a pan with blueberries and returned to the cabin. What were they going to do with all that fruit? The dilemma discouraged her and inspired him. He served berries in aquavit and lemon juice, baked pies and made ice cream. Although he burned his first pie and froze his first ice cream to a brick, he quickly learned from his mistakes. Proud of him, she enjoyed these treats and her spirits soared, though not for long. Once the euphoria had dissipated, David had a sad Suzy on his hands again.
By their second Saturday, she was so sad that he promised her a surprise that evening. Would she mind a fifty-kilometer drive? No, she consented more politely than confidently. On the way, he told her to guess the surprise. Recalling the kind of entertainment they had always enjoyed together, she guessed a party, a concert, an art exhibit, a play although they couldn't understand the language... She had even guessed an outdoor rock concert when she saw a road sign indicating that they were headed for Mörkvatten. That pathetic little nowhere? What kind of surprise was that? They had already been there and, after half an hour, they could find nothing further to do. She had imagined some kind of assembly where they would meet interesting people. Bitterly disappointed, she demanded that he stop, turn around and drive home. He had never seen her that angry before, her eyes flashing, her teeth biting, her arms and hands gesturing her exasperation. Her shrieks hurt his ears. She even shook the car shifting in her seat. Would she try to stomp on the brake, twist the steering wheel?
"Come on, Suzy. We will be there in a quarter of an hour. You have to see what it is before you can decide whether you like it or not. If you don't, I will take you home."
"Then you better tell me right now!"
He gave her a look she had never seen before: "No!"
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Startled: "No?"
He nodded: "No. I told you it would be a surprise, you agreed to that and I'm not going to let you spoil it."
In all their previous quarrels, he had shouted while she hadn't raised her voice, he had ranted and she had reasoned, he had protested and she had brought him around. Once she had calmed him down, he reversed himself, going even further than she had asked. The greater his initial outrage, the greater his eventual concession. Now, however, he was playing her role and she, his, much to the astonishment of both.
Lit by the declining sun, the mountains and the sky beyond the fiord silhouetted the restaurant near the end of the pier. Falling silent, Suzy tried to hide her humiliation. Without another word, she got out and accompanied David to the weathered wooden building, beyond which the pier extended, as they now saw, in an L occupied partly by tables and chairs. Rustic youth were sitting at them or dancing in a space next to the building where a band played with their backs to the wall. A woman sang, while three men played an electric guitar, a saxophone and a bass viol. Their professional youth and rusticity appealed to their audience, among whom David saw the blond who had recommended the place to him. As soon as she recognized him, she came over, greeted them, introduced herself as Birgit, made Suzy's acquaintance, encouraged them to enjoy themselves and recommended the salmon for dinner. As soon as she left them, Suzy admired her good manners and David rejoiced in the survival of hospitality in an unspoiled corner of the world. They chose a table near the end of the pier, where they heard the water lapping gently at the pilings beneath them. The setting sun was flaming the sky. A breeze cooled their cheeks and played with their hair. The musicians and the other customers were wearing jeans and woolen shirts. Since David and Suzy were wearing cotton polos and Bermudas, he wondered whether they would be cold, but she doubted it. They found the salmon excellent, likewise the beer.
The music consisted mostly of popular songs at least twenty years old borrowed from the international repertory of unsolicited and often unnoticed or unwanted background entertainment. The band played and sang these sentimental platitudes with more respect than originality, yet the sound had an unfamiliar ring that tickled American ears. After dancing to a few of them, David and Suzy found themselves near Birgit and a big blond, whom she introduced as Olaf during the next break. American coaches would have recruited him as a tackle or forward, but his father employed
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him on his trawler. The women arranged a double break, so David had a pleasant conversation with Birgit, while Suzy settled for the few words Olaf remembered from the English he had learned in school. Handsome, shy and polite, he amused her all the more by holding her as if afraid to crush or break her. He took a conscientious interest in her marriage, even wishing her many children, while Birgit ignored David's and told him all the opportunities he had to see her again without mentioning this consideration. Suzy was pouring on the charm and the more she poured it on, the more Olaf held her at arm's length. Subtle but explicit, Birgit was insinuating that she had more than good clean fun in mind. Having been through this before, David interpreted her worst intentions as if they were entirely decent without letting her think he misesteemed her charms. A student from Bergen with a summer job in Mörkvatten, she evidently found that the handsomest available rustic didn't meet her standards. The end of the insipid song to which they had danced without paying it any attention confronted the four of them with an embarrassing situation. The men wanted to return to their original partners and the women, to stay with their present ones, although none of them so much as hinted at this disagreement. After an awkward silence, Olaf chuckled and, putting his words together carefully, declared:
"This is a great day in my life. I have never met a Chinese before and the Chinese I have met is a beautiful young lady."
Not only did this remark compliment Suzy, but the tone of voice also implied that the experience had ended.
'Olaf is no oaf!' concluded the other three essentially, although each had his own reaction to this discovery.
From then on, Birgit and Olaf frequented their fellow countrymen.
"What can you do with somebody who is afraid of you?" complained Suzy.
"That depends on what you wanted to do with him."
"What's wrong with having a nice conversation?"
"Isn't that what you had with him?"
"You haven't told me about her."
"She's written me off."
"She has?"
"She's on the make and I'm already made. Olaf was right."
Suzy's ironical smile didn't hide her irritation.
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They couldn't find much further to say to each other that evening. The breeze blew steadily chillier, although the Norwegians, who had been drinking continuously, didn't seem to notice. Their talk and laughter grew louder until the men, egged on by the women, stood up and sang, rocking and waving their glasses, but each according to his own rhythm. Then they began to chase each other around the tables, while the women climbed up on them as if to escape and cheered or jeered. Which, David and Suzy couldn't decide. Was Birgit orchestrating the performance? Every time she said something, the men or the women did something as if obeying her orders. Then Birgit lept from the table, ran to the end of the pier and executed a one-and-a-half somersault into the water. David and Suzy were on their feet at the edge. No sooner had she come to the surface than Olaf ran off the pier and kept running, waving his arms and yelling until he disappeared in a splash. The others, except for a fat girl, followed, some of them holding hands, some jumping and some diving, but none as gracefully as Birgit. They were treading, splashing each other, swimming in circles, laughing and teasing the fat girl who teased back. David and Suzy discovered an older man standing nearby and watching them.
"Isn't that dangerous?" David asked him.
"Dangerous? Yes, of course it is dangerous! They do it every every Saturday. I count them. There were fifteen and now there are fourteen in the water and the fat one who never jumps. She is the only intelligent one. The others are mad. If they kill themselves, they will ruin me."
The excitement had worn off by the time Suzy got up the next morning. Try as she might, she couldn't respond to David's efforts to cheer her up. It was a rainy day during most of which they stayed indoors. David took advantage of the opportunity to do the laundry, hang the wash in the attic, give the kitchen a good cleaning, bake blueberry pastry according to a recipe in a German cookbook, repair the spring on the screen door, keep the fire in the living room burning, write a letter to Mom and postcards to Sabby, Reg, Jimmy and Christy, tune the old radio with more patience than success and read, especially read. He would have enjoyed it all if Suzy hadn't been moping. After proposing everything else he could think of, he laughed as if to introduce a joke:
"We could always realize Olaf's wish."
Suspicious: "What wish?"
"Didn't he wish you lots of kids?"
Grimace: "I have my period."
She had her period whenever she didn't feel like it. Oh well, he didn't either.
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He took a Krimi and a German-English dictionary off the shelf, sat down at the table in front of the big window and began to read. With a loud sigh, Suzy flopped on the love seat against the wall on the opposite side of the room. She sat up, crossed her legs this way and that, leaned over on one side and then on the other, folded her legs under herself facing forward, sideways and backward, lay down on both sides, her back and her belly, stretched her legs over one arm rest, then the other and propped them up on the back of the love seat, kneeled facing in all four directions, even tried various yoga positions. Every time she changed her position, she sighed yet David didn't seem to notice. The more she shifted and sighed, the more he concentrated on his whodunnit. Finally she threw a cushion at him, but it missed him and knocked the Krimi out of his hands.
"Hey! You lost my place!"
"I don't even exist."
The moping oriental beauty on the love seat? Tempted to laugh, he tried a deadpan:
"You sighed and changed your position twenty-three times."
"What?"
"What would you like to do?"
She jumped up, ran over to him, hugged him from behind, kissed him noisily on the cheek and slipped her hand down under his belt.
"What happened to your period?"
"Oh it was just a false alarm."
"Just bored or ready to start a family?"
Releasing him and turning away: "Neither."
"Why?"
"Why? Why what?"
"Why, after a whole year, aren't you ready? The longer you wait, the harder it will be."
"Did we come here to start a family?"
"We came here to be together alone... or alone together. Isn't that how baby's usually get started?"
"Babies should be carefully planned for. The next two years will be crucial to my career."
"Babies should never be planned for until after they are conceived. People who try to plan for them ahead of time usually don't have them because the conditions are never right."
"How about your mother and father?"
"I'm telling you what they told us. They warned us never to expect two miracles in a row."
"Whenever we have a disagreement, you quote your mother and father."
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"Would you like for me to quote yours?"
"... Look: we are going to have kids. I promise. Just give me two years. Please!"
"... OK. But two more will make three in all and sometimes you postpone your promises, like the one you keep making to invite friends instead of colleagues."
Despite David's determined and ingenious efforts, Suzy sank ever deeper into despair until he began to fear that she would do something irreparable. She couldn't sleep that night because she felt desperate and he couldn't sleep because she felt desperate. Sunday morning, he tried to persuade her to drive around the fiord, up and across the ridge on the other side. From their window, they could see a road with farms along it and an occasional car moving across it. From over there, he told her, they would have a wonderful view of this side including the Sørensen's house and the cabin. Didn't sunny weather favor such an excursion? More gray mountains, dark slopes, black water and hardly any people? No, thanks! Since the sun was shining on the bathroom corner of the cabin, she murmured that she was going to take a shower and wash her hair. The way she shut the door showed him he wasn't welcome. Unhappier over the manner than the fact, he sat down at the table contemplating the melancholy of the fiord, when a white cruise ship came into view from the ocean end. The proportions of the landscape might have reduced it to impertinence if it hadn't advanced self-confidently across the window. He took his camera and started taking pictures. Too bad Christy wasn't there! Preoccupied, he didn't notice Hansel and Gretel passing beneath his window high above the path. He saw them only when they turned the corner headed for the front door, where he invited them in. The visit demonstrated that the Sørensens had something to say, David's smile, that he welcomed them and the sound of the shower, that he would have to speak for Suzy. The first obstacle the older couple had to overcome was getting David to understand that they wanted to invite the younger one. Hansel said "kaffe" and raised an imaginary cup to his lips, while Gretel pointed at their house and asked "vierzehn Uhr?" Pointing at David, he said "välkommen!" and, pointing towards the shower, she said "auch willkommen!" Nodding and grinning, David replied "Ja! Danke schön!" Then the couple looked at each other to see which one had the nerve to attack the second obstacle. A robust sixty, Gretel summoned her courage, as indicated by a tightening and stiffening of her bulk, and asked: "Hochzeitsreise?" while pointing at David and towards the shower room. Although David knew what each of
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the syllables meant, he had no idea what they meant together. A high-time-trip? Eliminating the possibility of allusions to Suzy's shower or their evening in Mörkvatten, he assumed that they meant the young couple's trip to Norway. Yet the argument he had just had with Suzy gave him pause, despite Hansel and Gretel's smiles, which reassured him that they had an entirely innocent trip in mind.
"Hochzeit?" he asked.
"Herr och Fru," hinted Hansel with a smile wreathed in wrinkles.
And Gretel hummed the first four notes of Mendelssohn's marriage hymn.
David picked his dictionary up, found the definition and, relieved, answered:
"Nein, vor einem Jahr!"
No less enthusiastic, Gretel exclaimed: "Ihr Hochzeitstag!"
And Hans translated: "Vi firer!"
Once David had accepted with pleasure, the older couple rejoiced, shook hands and left. What a picturesque couple they were! A life of hard work had reduced him to his muscles and increased her to dignified bulk.
When Suzy finally emerged from her shower, the news brightened her gloom. She had accustomed him to deliberations over the appropriate dress, his as well as hers since his had to harmonize with hers. This time, however, she took unusual pleasure in considering the options and regretting clothes they had left behind in Mammoth. David exhausted his diplomacy keeping her from overdressing them as if for a tea dance in town. Her enthusiasm worried him: what did she expect of an invitation to coffee by an elderly country couple? After talking her into polo shirts, he had to talk her out of shorts, reminding her that her legs, however beautiful, might not make the right impression. She finally gave in with a pout he knew better than to take seriously. They walked the twenty meters from the cabin to the house self-consciously since they were in full view of the house. The Sørensens received them even more warmly than they had paid their visit since they had Suzy to welcome too. Her excitement aggravated David's fear that the older couple would disappoint her.
Gretel had baked a round cake fifteen inches in diameter and five inches high. It boasted generous portions of sugar, chocolate, cream, butter, in short all the most sinful ingredients. Hansel cut slices twice as big for his guests as for Gretel and himself. Before the young couple could make a polite protest, he explained: "Ungdom!" which Gretel translated as "Jugend!" which David translated as "youth" for Suzy. Questions, answers and comments went back and forth between the four of them in this order.
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Double translation resulted in separate reactions, such as laughter at a joke. Judging by the outbursts that a joke was on the way didn't spoil the fun when it came as it would have at a cocktail party. Since no vanity tempted them, they didn't feel the need to laugh in order to show that they understood what was funny. Instead of boring or irritating them, the awkward novelty of the conversation amused and intrigued them. While Hansel sliced and served the cake, Gretel poured her Kaffe from a tall, white faience coffee pot decorated with little Arabs carrying a cup of coffee on a tray. They wore a turban, had a dapper moustache, their eyes gleamed, they were walking fast and leaving a trail of vapor behind them. The same figures were rushing around the cups. I have been saving the Kaffe for last. The aroma intoxicated you, the taste delighted you, the effect ignited you. Gretel had evidently driven at least as far as Mörkvatten to buy her beans and milled them herself before perking them. Enthralled, Suzy yielded only reluctantly when, after over an hour, David hinted that they mustn't overstay their welcome.
Yet Suzy's elation had dissipated by the next morning when they woke up. He found her so listless and dejected that he wondered if he should suggest going home a week early. Since a breakfast of muesli with blueberries and cream failed to coax her out of bed, he opened the kitchen and bedroom windows to create a draft and waft the aromas of coffee and toast to her nostrils. She only sighed and rolled over away from him, so he put her breakfast on a tray with a small vase of wild flowers still dripping with dew and brought it to her. He had to hold the cup to her lips and cover the toast with slices of gyost, to which she had taken a liking. Her wish to thank him only brightened her eyes, but it was enough to inflame him with passion and he rained kisses on her instead of spanking her as she deserved. He was discovering that feminine beauty climaxes in distress, however trivial the cause. She hadn't lost her lover, but merely a few hours of sleep. She wasn't alone in the Sahara; on the contrary, she was in Romanica with prince charming. Tormented by her sorrow, he was trying to find the right words and the right moment to say them, which somehow eluded him. Maybe he could find the inspiration outdoors in the fresh air with exquisite scenery everywhere they looked. Getting her up, washed, combed, dressed and outside took a laborious half hour. Hardly had the exersize lifted her spirits! Remembering the goats, however, he led her to the Sørensen's two big sheep, which, instead of running away, approached as if to be petted. So he petted one and she, the other as they rolled eyes with triangular pupils up at them as if in appreciation. Then hers began to stroke his bulky fleece against her legs like a huge kitty cat. Suddenly, tears burst from her eyes and she ran back towards the cabin. Distraught, David was following her when he saw the dark red mail van with the yellow stripe chugging up the slope in low gear hours ahead of the usual delivery time.