Disint5
Among the disastrous consequences of the demagogue’s administration was the debt to the Chinese government, which, despite all the predictions to the contrary, remained an imperialistic oligarchy. Impetuous economic development had enriched a small minority and impoverished the vast majority of the people who, driven by despair and resentment, began to revolt. No sooner had the People’s Liberation Army crushed one revolt than another erupted somewhere else and they were increasing in number, extent and violence. As barbaric as in Mao’s time, the repression not only discouraged internal and external support of the regime, but also cost more and more money. The government had to sell some of the US bonds it had accumulated, thus undermining the value of new issues. Since the stick incited even more determined revolt, it resorted to the carrot as well, a dual policy that cost twice as much and required the liquidation of more bonds faster. By then, however, our bow-legged demagogue had served his two terms, built his library and retired to his ranch, where, instead of riding horses, he drove a high polluting pickup, gulping gasoline and kicking up clouds of dust. The recreation he enjoyed most, however, was giving his successor advice on how to end the recession that he had caused himself.
Even more vulnerable than other industries, moving and storage suffered a severe decline in business. The challenge reinforced Siss’s determination to preserve the company with which her father and husband had entrusted her. Although her manner remained as kind as ever, her decisions began to bite. She was listening to Janet, Nelly and Wren more critically, but they understood the necessity for greater rigor and admired her courage. They shared her devotion to Doz’s memory, although none of them tried to consult him. They couldn’t help regretting, however, that she lacked his ability to convert disadvantages into advantages, adversity into prosperity, discouragement into determination. They worried about the employees who, while they admired her courage too and respected Doz’s widow and Fuss’s daughter, regretted their ingenuity and generosity. Decreasing business deprived them of overtime and alerted them to the danger of pay cuts and lay offs. One third of them had already joined the IBLD. Treble now boasted twice the employees, assets, capacity, volume and earnings of Fossez and Chinski. Mapletonians considered the two movers equally reputable, but Treble had the advantage of support by N & I.
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Anticipating reduction of capacity throughout the industry, the IBLD demanded negotiations with management to minimize the impact on employees. An opportunity to make trouble for Fossez and Chinski incited D. P. Score to negotiate with the IBLD local in Mapleton even before N & I began negotiations with the union. Calling Quinlan McQueen, he warned that he couldn’t make any concessions that would disadvantage Treble in its competition with Fossez. Taking the hint, QQ promptly undertook a campaign to increase IBLD membership among Fossez employees to a majority. Nelly warned Siss that, if this campaign succeeded, she would face a choice between provoking a majority of her employees and negotiating with the union. Since the IBLD only needed twenty-three more members to reach a majority, Nelly didn’t think the strategy Doz had used to avoid union organization would work this time. Instead, Siss could promise her employees the same conditions as those obtained by the IBLD from other employers. She could even let them decide by referendum between this proposal and union organization. Siss agreed to follow this advice, but, before they could hold the referendum, one of the employees who belonged to the IBLD distributed tracts on company time urging his fellow workers to vote for the union. Although Nelly advised Siss to let her merely scold this employee, Siss subtracted the wages for the time he had wasted from his paycheck. This measure caused a dispute between a majority of the employees who approved of it and a minority who accused management of provocation. Charges and countercharges confused some of the employees who abstained, so that organization by the IBLD won by a few votes.
Although Nelly claimed responsibility for this defeat, Siss reminded her that she had made the mistake of refusing to let her merely scold the distributor of the tracts. Far from losing confidence in her, she wanted her to lead the Fossez delegation in the negotiations with Treble and the IBLD. Much would depend on disagreements between the rival company and the union: who could exploit them better than Nelly? Indeed she relished the opportunity all the more because the presidents and chief negotiators of both were vulgar white male mediocrities. She exasperated them right from the start by demanding three tables in a triangle instead of the traditional one with management on one side and the union on the other. This tactical victory amused the Fossez employees. As soon as the first meeting began, Nelly taught QQ and DP a lesson: sloppy talk would cost them dearly. Yet their very efforts to avoid it entangled them in even more treacherous language. DP told QQ:
“Listen!” the word with which he began nearly everything he said. “We will sell you jobs for salary cuts. OK?”
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QQ had opened his mouth to reply when Nelly interrupted:
“Who’s we?”
DP had opened his when QQ, who began everything he said with Hey!, asserted with a grin: “Hey! You guys gotta getcher act t'gether fore we can git nothin done.”
“We do? What’s this triangle for Hey!? Fossez ain’t gonna let you buy nonna our guys and Fossez ain’t gonna let Listen! sell none teither.”
“Shiii... !” protested Clancy Perkins, a union hack sitting next to QQ.
Nelly’s scar ignited. Scowling at him, she pointed at the door: “last one on the right!”
The Fossez and Treble delegations laughed, while some of the IBLD delegates gave the Treble delegation an angry look. However slight the humiliation, Clancy’s irritation resulted in his favorite obscenity ever more frequently. Every time it escaped him, the scowl and pointed finger made the Fossez and Treble delegations laugh at him. All three delegations had agreed to keep the details of their negotiations secret until they had reached a settlement. Yet a few sly leaks by a rival of QQ or a disgruntled subordinate of DP allowed the press to guess Nelly’s role. Cheering for her were not only Fossez employees, customers and friends, but also the general public. Although business usually declined in the fall, Fossez’s increased. Everyone knew, however, that the best Nelly and her fellow delegates, Siss, Janet and Freddy, could hope for was the least disadvantageous terms short of independence from the IBLD. A slight majority of Fossez employees still favored organization by the union.
After a few weeks of haggling, QQ began to threaten a strike. Aware that few Fossez employees would participate, Nelly dared him to try one. Since most of the Treble employees would participate, DP spoke privately with QQ, persuading him that a strike would hurt them both. Guessing what had happened, Nelly warned that Fossez would suspend negotiations as long as any strike lasted. This threat infuriated QQ and emboldened his rival, who leaked it to the press along with the occurrence and content of his conversation with DP. The rank and file began to question QQ’s control of the negotiations. As the haggling continued into a sixth week, the IBLD delegation worried about unpredictable events that would cost them the majority support of Fossez employees, while the Fossez delegation hoped for just such an event. Yet none occurred. Fearful that the employees would suspect them of foot dragging, the Fossez delegation agreed to the framework of a contract by the end of the seventh week and cooperated
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with the other delegations in working out the details during the eighth. Signed by Siss, DP and QQ, the contract set the conditions under which the two companies could lay employees off except for the number, a right she had insisted on. Management had to warn employees at least a month before they laid them off, grant early retirement to the older ones and severance pay to the younger ones. They would also seek employment elsewhere for those who asked for it. Everyone praised the contract as an example of what labor and management could achieve by negotiating in good faith, although a few meant it ironically. The IBLD adopted it as a model for negotiations with N & I and the other national companies.
“I let you down, Doz.”
“Nonsense!”
“I failed to keep Fossez competitive and independent as you and Dad did.”
“Neither of us faced a recession as bad as this one. No foreign power had us at their mercy as the Chinese do now. The big companies weren’t as powerful as they are now. Appointing Nelly as your chief negotiator was a brilliant move. I’m proud of you. I’m proud of her too. Likewise Freddy and Janet. You fought a good fight, but it was one nobody could win. You didn’t let Fuss and me down, on the contrary, you kept the company healthy in an epidemic.”
“The epidemic isn’t over yet. It might get worse.”
“It might but I’m counting on a lady who doesn’t scare.”
“I miss you more than ever, Doz. When I can’t sleep, I think of all the times I could have shown you how much I love you and didn’t.”
“That wasn’t very often. You know how much I love you too... How come you have stopped going to the Tabernacle? Have you given up on the Free Faith Assembly?”
“I was afraid you would ask me that. I attend mass at St. Francis every Sunday. It’s as if you were sitting beside me just as you used to.”
“But Siss: I was only doing that for the sisters and you were only keeping me company. The Assembly is far more enlightened than the Church. This pope... !”
"I used to think so too. But I have proof of eternal life now and I can see that Christ keeps his promise just as the Church has always said.”
“Proof? What proof?”
"You are my proof.”
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“Me? How do you know I’m not just your memory of me?”
“How can a memory have a conversation? make jokes, tease me, laugh? give me advice? Pretty damned good advice! Make love to me!”
“Make love to you? It’s pretty spiritual, don’t you think?”
“Sure, but it’s not any less wonderful for that and, when the Resurrection comes, we will get our bodies back. I’m looking forward to that.”
“Shiii... !”
“I knew I shouldn’t have told you that story!”
“It’s too good a story to hold back. When Nelly’s scar turns red, look out!... I hope you are right about the Resurrection, Siss, but I don’t know whether the dogma supports your interpretation. I don’t think any of the Church Fathers believed that couples would have sex together when they got their bodies back. Michelangelo would have painted an enormous cloud on the ceiling of the Sixtine with couples everywhere, slipping pistons, as they say in Carinia.”
“The pope wouldn’t have liked it, the cardinals might have gotten the wrong idea. Fig leaves wouldn’t have worked.”
“He could have enveloped each couple in a cosy pocket so they could make love in privacy.”
“The cloud would have to be dry, soft and warm like a duvet.”
“That would be great, but I’m afraid you are going to be disappointed.”
“When it happens, I’m going to tell you ‘I told you so!’”
The recession did get worse, far worse than even the pessimistic economists had predicted. As temperatures fell and daylight diminished, energy needs increased. Yet the demagogue and his congress had sold favorable legislation to the oil, gas and power industries for campaign contributions, thus leaving the country dangerously dependent on imported energy. He had even encouraged the use of heating, cooling, lighting, machinery and transportation that squandered fossile fuels, thus depleting sources and driving prices up. Global warming? An illusion! The damage to the ecology? Exaggerated! Alternative fuels and renewable sources? Wishful thinking! Though preoccupied with his historical reputation rather than the consequences of his presidency, he hinted that he could have managed the recession better than his successor had.
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The economy took another turn for the worse and Siss decided that she had to lay one fifth of the employees off. She met with Janet, Nelly and Wren to choose the victims, over whom they agonized for three days and well into two nights. They did everything they could to soften the blow, but it infuriated the employees and even those who would keep their jobs. The resentment spoiled relations with them, caused negligence, lowered efficiency. Among the employees kept by the company, those who hadn’t joined the IBLD did so. For once, Treble was treating its employees better than Fossez, for DP laid only a tenth of his off. Backed by N & I, he borrowed to ride the recession out. Siss declined an offer by Cross-Country to help her secure a loan too, because she knew it would impose conditions weakening Fossez’s independence. Higher employee morale enabled Treble to offer customers better service, so it was taking some of them away from Fossez. It was the worst ordeal Siss had ever faced.
Who decided that Thanksgiving would come on the last Thursday in November? He must have been one of the demagogue’s ancestors. The Plymouth Pilgrims set the precedent in October, a far more appropriate and convenient season. The Canadians, who have better sense than we do, celebrate it then. What could be more depressing than the onset of winter? Siss admitted to Doz that she wondered how she could survive another one. Never had the company sunk so low and she felt responsible for it. Doz reminded her that the decline of business during the cold season afforded her the opportunity to plan and prepare for the warm one. Together with Janet, Nelly and Wren, she should reassess the company’s assets and capabilities, review its strengths and weaknesses, determine its advantages and disadvantages in the competition with Treble. They should consider how they could exploit the tactical opportunities of spring and the strategic ones at the end of the recession. Since Treble and N & I had always considered do-it-yourself moving and storage a rival business, Fossez had an interest in improving these services. They attracted younger customers, many of whom, as they grew older, would accumulate enough property to need professionals for moving and storage. If already satisfied with Fossez, they would call that number. Although Treble had continued to obtain the renewal of its contracts with the city and the schools, Fossez could approach the counties with jurisdiction over the suburbs and the school districts in their territory. Providing them with better services at lower rates without kickbacks would undermine Treble’s monopoly of the same business within the city limits. Although everyone knew that corruption supported this monopoly, no one who wanted to prove it had so far succeeded. Above all, Siss and her colleagues should restore the confidence of their employees by treating them better than Treble and the
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IBLD, who didn’t really care about them. Visits to worksites shouldn’t be inspection tours, conversations with employees shouldn't resemble interrogation, meetings shouldn't result in exhortations. Management had to listen, respond, sympathize, recommend and especially help. Fossez couldn’t reverse the trend against it without the support of its employees. It had to get the business it had lost to Treble back before the rival company increased its advantage to an irreversible extent. The psychology of competition always favored an underdog determined to surpass his rival and especially when the rival had already surpassed him. Fossez and Treble had been seesawing ever since Fuss had founded the company.
“OK, Doz, I will get the girls together this morning.”
“The best team in Mapleton!”
“I’m afraid it’s a defensive team.”
“Good defenses recover fumbles and intercept passes. They score too.”
“I will remind Janet.”
“How about Thanksgiving?”
“The Richards will cater for us. David and Suzy don’t know whether they can come. Jim doesn’t know either. All the others are coming, but I had to let Christy bring her girl friend. Did I tell you? Her name is Spinach and they call her Spinny. She has red hair. At least she won’t be a threat like Warren Shirkins.”
“What ever happened to him?”
“He’s in prison in Alabama, but he has applied for parole.”
“When will he finish his sentence?”
“Next spring. They couldn’t say whether he will get parole or when.”
“If he tries to make trouble, Reg will stand up to him, but he knows how to use weapons. You need a contingency plan.”
“Wren, Edith, Reg, Freddy and I have tried to foresee all the dangers. We discussed them with the police, who explained when they can intervene and when they can’t. We have a contract with a security agency, which will send one or two guards, armed or unarmed, if we ask for them. It will take them about a quarter of an hour to reach Five Sides, Reg and Wren’s townhouse, Edith’s apartment, Fossez and Chinski or Touchdown Sportswear, wherever we need them.”
“He could do a lot of harm in a quarter of an hour.”
“We discussed that, but the cost of hiring a guard for several hours on Thanksgiving Day...”
“Call the prison every week and again a few days before Thanksgiving. It doesn’t matter if you irritate them.”
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“All right.”
The Thanksgiving party began as happily as usual. Christy and Spinny surprized everyone by wearing skirts instead of clinging jeans. Although Christy knew how to walk, stand and sit in a skirt, Spinny had either forgotten or never learned. She was so awkward, uncomfortable and nervous that everyone felt sorry for her. Christy’s green wool sweater covered her small bosom loosely, while Spinny’s pink angora exposed all of her large one above the nipples and pressed the rest so tightly that everyone wondered, as Blake told Freddy, whether it would pop out. Everyone could tell that Christy had given Spinny a lesson on how to behave, Spinny was trying to meet her standards and Christy, though unsatisfied, was treating her indulgently. Attention also focused on Wren, whose swollen belly had distorted her slender figure, much to her embarrassment. It was a little boy, everything was coming along fine and the doctor had said the end of January. Anny came up and poked her before anyone could stop her.
“That’s all right,” Wren reassured Jimmy and Marsha. “She has to learn where they come from.”
It was Reg, however, who needed reassurance. That little poke had scared him. He was hovering around Wren, ready to intervene and offering to do or get things for her. Sometimes he didn’t even hear when someone spoke to him. Suzy and David also received a lot of attention because of their long, distant and exotic absence. Suzy’s voice had the ring of authority and her manner exhibited self-confidence, but Freddy complimented her on her “state of preservation.” Everyone laughed, including Suzy herself. No longer following her around, David circulated happily on his own. His curiosity and enthusiasm about everything Chinese impressed the others, even Christy who had a habit of not being impressed. When I say Christy, I also mean Spinny who was imitating her even when inappropriate. Outspoken as usual, Christy annoyed or embarrassed people who, except for Janet, stayed away from her. Yet Sabby, who had enveloped her bosom in green wool too, as everyone noticed, ran over to her, kissed her noisily and made a fuss over her, which convinced Christy that she really meant it. She treated Spinny kindly, which encouraged her so that she seemed less pathetic.
Having dutifully spoken to everyone, Jim retreated to the company of Freddy and Mark. He craved friendship, which troubled those most anxious to befriend him. The environment in which he lived and worked provided him with colleagues rather than friends. He spent most of his time with
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engineers and workers in remote places, moving from one to another after a few weeks or months. Living in temporary rustic luxury, he disdained the smoking, drinking, gambling, whoring and drug-taking enjoyed by his fellows. They discussed engineering with him, but they teased him about the books he read, the music he listened to, the movies he watched, or avoided him while he was doing it. His frequent moves both troubled and habituated him. When Siss's other guests wondered if he wouldn’t like to come home, settle down, find a nice girl, marry her and have children, he didn’t know what to say. He might have said he wanted to and didn’t want to. Interested in Fossez and Chinski, he regretted the decline caused by the recession, union organization and competition with Treble. As soon as Freddy had told him, he took Siss aside and offered her a loan, a million if she could use it. Overjoyed, she kissed him, thanked him and assured him that a loan wouldn’t solve her problems. Unlike his fellow engineers, he had accumulated considerable wealth, which he had invested in a diversified portfolio managed by a broker in Zurich.
“You know, Siss: I would have liked to spend that money on somebody like you, but I never could find anybody.”
Only when it was too late to laugh did she realize that he meant it as a joke. Although Sabby welcomed him warmly, he could scarcely conceal his embarrassment over her bosom, which intruded on his field of vision. His heartfelt overtures only puzzled Anny, who asked who that fat man was even before he went beyond earshot. He had a red face and a big hairy thing on his lip that shook when he spoke. Although Jim tried to laugh, it sounded more like groans. In conversation with Reg and Wren, his reluctance to talk about her pregnancy contrasted with their willingness. The smiles of those who overheard it mortified him. The compliment he paid Christy on her resemblance to her grandmother backfired and she thanked him with hostile irony. A cackle escaped Spinny before a glance from Christy scythed her mirth. Upset by these blunders, Jim, who usually had only one drink before dinner, asked for a second Bloody Mary.
Sabby would have given Jim a hug if her bosom hadn’t embarrassed him. She was giving a well-cushioned one to everyone else, which inspired Freddy to call her “Earth Momma.” Everyone laughed, except Jim and Anny.
“I used to be the Earth Momma round here,” said Nelly, “but don’t worry, I ain’t jealous, I’m just glad to see someone else doing the job.”
Yet Sabby’s affection hardly reminded you of Nelly’s. She rushed to Nelly herself and hugged her in turn:
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“You are still our Earth Momma, Nelly, and Grandmomma.”
“There's still one lil ol thing you gotta do, Chile, fore you can be no kinda momma.”
“Don’t worry, Nelly. Nathan and I are going to take care of that.
After a little silence, Siss said: “I hope so. There are a lot of witnesses here.”
Nathan raised his glass: “Let’s drink to that.”
They all took a solemn sip, even Anny with her orange juice.
Then Suzy, who had had a few, raised her glass: “Let’s have a race and see who gets there first.”
David: “Hunh?”
Suzy laughed: “Come on, David! We can beat Sabby and Nathan any time.”
Loud applause and kisses.
Siss: “I would like see all of this in writing.”
Freddy: “I will do the contracts free.”
Once the commotion had died, Christy raised her glass and said:
“Well, how about Spinny and me?”
After a silent second, Siss asked gently: “What about you and Spinny?”
Grinning: “We are engaged.”
Shocked, Spinny tried to say something, but only managed a few unhs.
Jimmy: “Spinny didn’t seem to know.”
Reg: “Engaged? To get married?”
Grinning, Christy nodded vigorously.
Janet: “I wish you had discussed it with me first.”
Siss: “So do I, and with me too.”
Sabby: “You have a right to get engaged, Christy, but you have to get Spinny’s consent. Shouldn’t you at least discuss it with Mom or your Godmom?”
Christy angrily: “You never discussed anything like that with Mom!”
Siss: “What Sabby told you was appropriate, Christy. Your father would tell you exactly the same thing.”
Freddy: “According to Zenia law, Christy, you can’t marry Spinny, but you can declare domestic companionship with her if you and her parents agree or if you wait until both of you are seventeen.”
Jim, shocked: “I didn’t know Zenia had passed such a law.”
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Freddy: “The gay community protested vociferously, but the only disadvantage of domestic companionship is that it lacks the traditional prestige of marriage.”
Janet: “Gays can adopt and raise children, can’t they?”
Christy: “They can have a baby with a friend of the opposite sex too. That’s what we are going to do, aren’t we, Spinny?”
Spinny was stunned.
Blake: “Even if you find a boy friend, one of you isn’t going to like the other one doing the dirty deed with him.”
Nelly: “You ain’t gonna do no dirty deed, yous just talkin, you wouldn’t do that to yo Daddy.”
Siss: “Her Daddy has heard enough! Maybe Marsha and Jimmy could play for us now.”
She explained that Anny and the Music School had kept them from playing together as often as before. They would play the Scroggs suite together, then each would play other music alone. Everyone noticed that, when they played together, they were no longer the visual treat they used to be. Yet the more acute listeners heard better music from them than before and particularly from Jimmy. Marsha pleased everyone with some Mozart on her flute, but some of them saw that she felt uneasy playing alone. Though always great, Jimmy’s self-confidence in solo performance had increased, likewise his musicianship. Siss wouldn’t have expected Debussy to suit him, yet he had mastered the difficulty of creating a dream-like impression without slurring any notes. While he was playing, Anny withdrew her hand from Marsha, went over and sat on the bench beside Jimmy. Once he had finished and the applause had stopped, she asked:
“Let’s play a duet, Daddy.”
They played Mozart’s Turkish March and Anny took pleasure in the rhythm, while Jimmy assured the harmony. Anny’s motion reminded everyone of Marsha when she was a teenager. Christy and Marsha exchanged glances.
“Are we going to see Christy’s latest paintings?” asked Jim.
Intended as an overture, the question pleased Christy without inspiring any gratitude. It appalled the other guests who had seen her latest paintings and especially Spinny, who started to leave.
“Where are you going?” barked Christy, shocking everyone.
“N... Nowhere,” whimpered Spinny.
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Taking her by the hand, Christy led the willing guests to the utility room, once her studio, where she set her easel up, took a painting from her portfolio and displayed it. They saw a nude Spinny with mustard hair running towards them from the upper right to the lower left. Three figures blended into a common torso, while three pairs of legs were in positions typical of running. The tripled limbs reminded the viewers of Hindu goddesses. The arms of each approaching position spread wider, likewise her grin, and her gray eyes grew bigger. Worse, surrounded by a mustard wreath, her vagina gaped wider. Her pear-shaped breasts and her hair were bouncing up and down. Every viewer felt as if she was going to smother him or her in a soft, warm hug. The real Spinny, whose hand Christy was holding tightly, had red hair, blue eyes and grapefruit breasts, but they recognized her in the painting because the artist had exaggerated other traits such as her potato head, the twist in her nose and her tapered chin. Youth disguised these flaws in the model.
Her humiliation incited every reaction from shock to outrage. Desperate to escape, she was looking back and forth as if to find an exit, while Christy was smiling triumphantly. Anxious to avoid a scene, Mark admired Christy’s skill in representing moving figures. Distracted by the only viewer whose opinion she respected, Christy failed to keep Spinny from jerking her hand away and fleeing. Mark was saying that she had painted movement in dogs, cats, fish, horses, birds, bees, dragonflies, flowers in the wind and now even humans. The complexity of the ultimate animal hadn’t escaped her.
“I want to see her do an octopus,” said Freddy trying to ease the tension.
A few viewers managed to smile. Exchanging a glance with Siss, Janet ran after Spinny. Only then did Siss see that Jimmy and Marsha had already left with Anny. The second painting Christy placed on her easel showed another caricature of Spinny, who was on her knees and elbows turned away from the viewers along an axis from the lower right to the upper left. The position focused attention on both her vagina and her anus. Jim shouted and David ran out of the room. This nude, who had dark hair, had turned her head an impossible 180° to grin at her viewers, but craftily rather than impetuously as in the previous painting. She had Spinny’s blue eyes, but her breasts, which hung from her chest, were pair-shaped again, while her buttocks resembled two ripe tomatoes.
Sabby broke the silence: “I guess I like the other one better, Christy.”
Nathan: “Yes, rushing to embrace her lover is healthy, exposing herself like that...”
Reg: “is disgusting.”
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Wren: “Repulsive!”
Christy: “Sure, but art isn’t moral.”
Freddy: “No, except art that implies a moral judgment. But I think it does in this painting and less in the other one.”
Mark: “That’s the judgment I think we would have made if we had discovered it hanging on the wall of a gallery and before reading the notice beside it.”
Siss: “Bravo! Mark. Doz told me that, if we have a guest like you, we have nothing to fear. Show us your other paintings, Christy.”
David returned, looking pale, and joined Suzy. In Christy’s next painting, the viewers looked down on the nude lying back from them with her knees raised and spread. It focused attention on her vagina again and she had her head raised at an impossible 90° angle inviting them with Oriental eyes. Convulsively, David and Suzy grabbed each other’s hands. The nude’s eyes and hair resembled Suzy’s, although she resembled Spinny in every other respect. Her pears were pointing straight up. Everyone was silent except Nelly’s son Bret, a physician in his thirties who was trying not to laugh.
“What you laughing at, Son?”
“I’m sorry, Momma, I can’t help it.”
“It ain’t funny.”
“I know it ain’t... I mean ‘isn’t’.”
Christy: “Maybe it is funny since he was laughing.”
Everyone looked at Bret:
“Well... like porn, it looks like porn, except that it’s better... I mean it’s artistic. The stuff you see on the internet... ” He shrugged contemptuously.
“Bret, you too old to whup.”
“Come on, Momma, give me a break. I only see that stuff when I’m looking for something else. I have to look for things on the internet.”
Siss: “Come on, Nelly, give him a break!”
Freddy: “He has to look at the real thing every day all day long.”
The others were beginning to laugh.
Nelly: “He ain’t no gyno.”
Bret: “You would have whupped me every time you had a chance! I do have female patients, but I lost my curiosity after a few dozen of them.”
Wren: “He’s a big boy now, Nelly. You don’t have to change his huggies any more.”
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Sabby: “He knows where babys come from.”
Siss: “I never tried to stop you from surfing the net. I bet you looked at feelthy pictures too.”
Christy: “I would like to hear what Mr. Jacob has to say about this painting.”
Mark: “I think Bret was on the right track when he said it was better than the stuff on the internet because it’s artistic. In the literal sense, pornography means the representation of prostitutes or prostitution and, in the figurative, obscenity or lust. Consciously or unconsciously, Christy, you must have been thinking of Courbet’s Origines du monde.”
“ Unconsciously. I only realized it afterwards.”
He nodded. “You can’t see his nude’s face, while yours is looking at us, impudently in fact. Corbet’s nude is impersonal, yours, personal; his intentions were apparently clinical and philosophical, yours... Would you agree that they are pornographic, satirical and perhaps ritualistic?”
“ Yes, ritualistic.”
“Which you may also have in common with Courbet.”
Siss: “I was kidding Nelly about her motherhood, but I have to admit that these paintings confront me with a dilemma. I’m proud of the artist, but the sacrifice of her friend... Do you understand, Christy?”
A wooden face: “Spinny is tougher than you think, Mom..." Looking around: “Where did she go?”
Siss: “Show us your next painting.”
No caricature, this one showed Spinny as she was except that she was black. She was walking away from the lower left to the upper right and looking back at the viewers with an enigmatic smile that hid her teeth. She had brown eyes and kinky hair. Was she inviting her lover to follow her, accepting her lover’s rejection of her or confirming her rejection of her lover, whom the painting associated with the viewer? Although the model’s shoulder, back, buttocks, legs and arms were as beautiful as her youth allowed, the artist had enhanced them. She had even restored her grapefruit breasts.
David: “Why didn’t you show us this one first?”
Christy: “Because they tell a story. If I had started at the end and finished at the beginning, you wouldn’t have understood.”
Reg: “I don’t even understand them in the right order.”
Mark: “Let me guess: 1. the onset of love, 2. the perversion of love, 3. the corruption of love, 4. the end of love or the beginning of a new love?”
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Christy: “Yes, I was trying to think of titles and they would be the right ones. Do you mind if I use them?”
“No, of course not!”
David: “I wish you had told me the story before we saw the paintings.”
Nathan: “What do the various racial profiles mean?”
Sabby: “Is there a relationship between each race and the subject of the painting it appears in?”
“ No, Dad wouldn’t have liked that.”
Siss tried to hide her pain with a little laugh: “How about me?... I will tell you what he thinks after I ask him tomorrow morning.”
The usual silence followed. Did she really think she was talking with Doz during her visits to his grave?
This time, Siss had decided to seat everyone around the dining room table, to which Reg had added two leaves. With his eyes, Wallace motioned Siss to the side, where he whispered in her ear. Once the diners had sat down, she said grace, an innovation. Then they took their napkins and began to unfold them, but, in a tone of voice that stopped some of them, Christy asked:
“Where is Spinny?”
Siss: “Janet left a message with Wallace who just told me. Spinny wasn't feeling well and thought she had better leave. Janet is taking care of her.”
Stunned for an instant, Christy stood up and ran out of the room. They heard her start her little Nissan and tear off down the driveway kicking the gravel up. After a depressing silence, Jim, whose eyes were dancing, said:
“Looks like Mom, acts like Dad.”
Did he mean it as a joke? No one laughed, not even politely. His falsely comic voice disconcerted them, likewise his enigmatic smile. He had gulped a third Bloody Mary down while viewing Christy’s paintings. No wonder he had had trouble talking and walking. When Wallace tried to hold him to two by reminding him of the wine he was going to serve with dinner, Jim lost his temper and threatened to go and get another one himself.
“People who don’t drink much should be more careful when they do, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”
“I’m sorry he didn’t, Wallace. He will be even sorrier himself when he sobers up. Christy's paintings upset him.”
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Now that conversation had resumed around the table, Jim poured himself both white and red wine, which he drank alternatively. More bogus jokes in the same tone of voice knocked the conversation down every time it got up on its feet. Collaborating as only old friends could, Siss, Freddy, Nelly and Mark restrained him without offending him, while encouraging a tolerant humor and a festive mood in the others. Let me give you an example. Anny was sitting in a highchair between Marsha and Jimmy. Across from her, Nelly said:
“You use that spoon pretty well, Honey. Before long, you will be using a knife and a fork.”
Continuing to chew, Anny stared at Nelly. The other guests agreed and approved. Pleased and proud, her parents exchanged glances as if to ask which one should respond.
Jimmy: “Marsha’s good at teaching Anny how to eat.”
Marsha blushed: “Oh I think it’s because she sees that Jimmy is watching her.”
Everyone had a compliment, including Jim:
“She even gets most of the food into her mouth!”
In a sober tone of voice and with a straight face and a twinkle in his eye, he would have made everyone laugh. No one did. Instead, silence and downcast eyes. Everyone was waiting for someone else to stoke the fire.
Accepting this task, Mark asked David about art in Shanghai. David praised the screens he had seen, which led to an enthusiastic discussion of the exquisite brushwork and subtle coloring. Reg and Jimmy volunteered to bring the one Dad had given Mom and set it up at the end of the dining room. They admired the land and seascapes, the animals and fish, the pavilions with steep tile roofs turned upwards at the corners and, especially, people from peasants in tunics to priests in gowns, men with silky beards and women with architectural hairdos. Wren laughed at the servile, stern or fierce look in the men’s eyes depending on their social status. Sabby wondered at the highly arched eyebrows of the women, their tiny mouths, the graceful arm and dainty hand with which they fanned themselves. Women selected, trained and groomed for the pleasure of men, remarked Suzy. The ultimate refinement of overdeveloped civilization, explained Mark.
Jim: “Too bad Christy isn’t here!”
Mark broke the ensuing silence: “These artists exhibit the subtlest features of nature and their culture with accuracy and elegance, yet mystery pervades their work.”
“You see everything but you understand less,” Siss agreed. “I’m still exploring this one. I’m still discussing it with Doz.”
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For once, mentioning her dialogue with him didn’t cause much embarrassment, so appropriate did it seem. The esthetic idealization of the trees, flowers and other vegetation reminded Nathan of his temporary employment in a nursery:
“It’s like a magic garden: it disturbs and exhilarates you.”
David said he had begun to save and shop for a screen. Suzy, who apparently hadn’t heard of this project before, warned that dealers were flooding the market with fakes and imitations.
“Any authentic screen would go for hundreds of thousands. How could you outbid governments, museums and collectors? It would bankrupt us.” Once she had said it, however, she seemed to regret discouraging him.
Mark: “I have been trying to organize an exhibit of oriental screens for years. We only have two of them in the Museum.”
They were in ecstasy over the Wallaces' food. In addition to turkey, ham, sweet and unsweet mashed potatoes, green peas and beans, cranberry sauce and relish, Roberta’s biscuits and Wallace’s assortment of pickles, she had created a soupe de poisson that would have fooled a French gourmet and he had discovered an Alsatian Riesling and a Montepulciano.
“Vino nobile!” Mark recalled.
He and Freddy huddled with Wallace in a corner to taste and discuss them. Since the finer points of winetasting surpass my competence, I will leave their observations to the imagination of my better qualified readers. By the time Wallace served coffee, decaf, tea and herb tea, the food and drink had calmed the diners’ troubles. Suspended between sleepy wakefulness and wakeful sleepiness, Jim was sipping his black coffee conscientiously. Siss was just beginning to think ‘all’s well that end’s well’ when a motorcycle rumbled down the driveway, ground across the gravel beyond the dining-room window and echoed in the breezeway where the rider turned the motor off. His helmet and clothes had obstructed the diners’ curiosity and anxiety began to subvert their happy comfort. Everyone knew Siss didn’t want any cars in the breezeway, to say nothing of motorcycles, so Reg looked at her expectantly and she nodded to him. No sooner had he stood up than an overbuilt young man with a leer on his weathered face, fierce eyes and wild hair entered:
“I was afraid I would miss the party!” shouted Warren Shirkins as if to raise his voice over the noise of his motor.
Siss and Wren stood up, but, before Siss could say anything, Wren ran around the table swinging her belly and, grabbing Reg by the arm, yanked him behind her so that she stood between him and her brother. None of them except Warren and Edith had ever seen her exert such strength.
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“You aren’t invited, Warren. You aren’t welcome either. Get out of here before I throw you out.”
Some of the women around the table gasped. Nelly and Sabby stood up, followed by the other men. Warren’s leer shifted from intimidation to derision:
“Hey! My baby sister’s going to have little black Sambo!”
Wren slapped him so fast and hard that he staggered. Astonishment erased the leer and anger exhibited a scowl. Reg tried to pull Wren back behind him, but she resisted. Led by Nelly and Sabby, the other men were approaching. Howling with rage, Warren slugged Wren in the belly. She screamed and fell on the floor writhing with pain. Mortified, Warren started to kneel beside her and Reg hesitated between kneeling beside her and slugging him. Having grabbed a chair, Nelly swung it over her head and brought it down hard on Warren, who fell on his knees. She was raising it again when Freddy grabbed it from behind and gently took it away from her. She glanced at him reproachfully.
“Once will do it,” he said calmly, “twice will undo it.”
With blood streaming from his head, Warren staggered to his feet, stumbled out of the room and ran waveringly for his motocycle. He jumped on it, kick started it and turned it around as Nelly, Freddy, David and Nathan entered the breezeway. Kicking up the gravel, he skidded into the driveway and roared away without looking back.
“If only you had been there, Doz!”
“What could I have done?”
“You would have thought of something, you always did!”
“I never faced a series of crises like that. I think you handled it pretty well. I couldn’t have done as well.”
"Yes you could! You would have welcomed Warren and that would have stopped Wren. You would have invited him to sit down and celebrate Thanksgiving with us. Your generosity would have disarmed him. How could he have resisted the Richards’ food and drink after a motorcycle trip all the way from Alabama? He was probably as hungry as a wolf remembering the Thanksgiving I had invited him to. Warren isn’t evil, he just can’t control the evil we all have in us.”
“... Welcoming him might have worked, but you thought of it and I don’t think I would have, not in time. Besides, how do you know it would have stopped Wren?"
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"Wren adores you, Doz. She wanted that baby because it would have been your grandchild. Christy adores you too. She didn’t forget you when she did those four paintings. You would have understood that her racial types imply universality rather than prejudice. If you had been there, you could have tamed her, she would have treated Spinny better.”
“Christy had already done those paintings, but she hadn’t shown them to you. How could you have known that you shouldn’t let her bring Spinny? I couldn’t have either. How could either of us have known that we should have tamed her already when she was a cute little girl? Her impertinence amused us. It was too late when she reached adolescence. In raising children, the best intentions sometimes bare poisonous fruit. You never know who they really are until they grow up and then it’s too late! Tame Christy? I’m just a man! Even Janet can’t tame her.”
“You would have asked to see those paintings before you let her show them to the others... ”
“You were the disciplinarian, Siss. I wasn’t any good at that. You could be tough because you were sweet and kind. I was kind because I was afraid to be tough. This situation required a disciplinarian, not a diplomat.”
“You would have humored Christy’s engagement.”
“That would have been a blunder.”
“I’m afraid she might have sex with a man just so she and Spinny can have a child.”
“... I know you and Janet will try to dissuade her, but, if you go too far, she will do it just to spite you. Let’s hope she was indulging in adolescent bluster.”
“You wouldn’t have asked Jimmy and Marsha to play a duet. What a blunder that was!”
“ No, it was a good idea that didn’t happen to succeed. The trouble between Jimmy and Marsha was a good reason to try it. Playing together might have reconciled them with each other.”
“If you had been there, Doz, Jim would have behaved.”
“How could I have foreseen that Jim, who doesn’t drink much, would get drunk?”
“Hello, Mrs. Chinski!”
“Hello, Hank!”
“How does Mr. Chinski like this weather?”
“He hasn’t said anything. I wonder if he notices.”
“Well, give him my best.”
“OK, Hank. I will do that.”
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Chuckle: “You know, Siss, Hank doesn’t believe in me.”
“No, I’m afraid he doesn't. Do you mind?”
“No, of course not. He’s a nice guy, that’s all that matters.”
“Doz?”
“Yes?”
“Wren and Reg are coping with a disaster that would have wrecked other marriages, even in our day.”
“Maybe it’s because they had to overcome such terrible obstacles just to fall in love.”
“I know it’s wrong to have favorites, but they are our best chance for a happy third generation.”
“Do you think they will try again?”
“That’s practically all they are talking about. Their siblings and siblings-in-law are cheering for them. Also Edith, Freddy and Allison, Nelly, Mark, even Jim.”
“So am I, Siss. Heard anything about Warren?”
“No. We had a long discussion with Freddy and we finally agreed to leave him alone. Nelly gave him a lesson he will never forget and he was horrified by what he had done. What good would more years in prison do?”
“Nelly knows how to take care of men who misbehave. She never told me how she tamed her husband, she was afraid it would make a bad impression on me.”
When the moving and storage sector of the Mapleton economy emerged from the Great “Chinese” Depression, Treble was more than twice as big as Fossez according to every statistical comparison. Customers now considered one as reliable as the other, except for some who had more confidence in a bigger company and others who had more in one that used to deserve it. Both of them could barely meet demand during the moving season, both coasted through the rest of the year comfortably, both were financially sound. The employees of both saw no particular advantage or disadvantage in working for one or the other. Since most of them belonged to the IBLD, they had more loyalty to the union than their company. In the competition with each other, management at Fossez as well as Treble could expect no unusual sympathy, cooperation or dedication from their employees, who collected their paychecks as conscientiously as they did their job. Any proposal to improve relations between them and management met with suspicion and prompted an attempt by the IBLD to exploit the opportunity. Siss was smarter than D. P., but she considered the
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preservation of Fossez as her mission, while Horace Treble never let D. P. forget that his was forcing the rival company to sell out. Horace harassed D. P. from N. & I. headquarters for progress towards this goal, while Siss answered to Doz, whose direst warnings and most urgent recommendations only reinforced her determination to defend Fossez instead of attacking Treble. D. P. felt like a racehorse being whipped through the final quarter and Siss, like a jockey determined to save her horse’s energy for that final quarter. Yet neither knew how far along they were in the race.
The Kindergarten awarded “the three ladies and Wren”, as they called them, a prize for the most congenial and efficient management team in Mapleton. Effectiveness in competition went unmentioned, however, while the redundant praise “and they are all women” amounted to courteous obfuscation. If the conversation drifted to the all-male team at Treble, the smiles became ironical and the subject promptly changed. Known as “the locker room,” the Treble office was a daily hell where you had to come early and leave late. Horace was pricking D. P. with his pitchfork and this “encouragement” was repeated all the way down to the office boy. They called it “the pricking order” at the Kindergarden. Promotion to top management at N & I, for which Horace would have prostituted his mother, depended on erasing the stigma of his defeat by Doz. Thus Treble took advantage of every apparent opportunity to inflict damage on Fossez. Most of these attempts failed or backfired against the most vigilant and capable management team in Mapleton. Most. However insignificant separately, the exceptions were substantive because they amounted to a trend. Convinced by experience that Fossez would never counterattack, to say nothing of attacking Treble, D. P. and his fellow mediocrities celebrated successes that others held in contempt. In Doz’s and Fuss’s times, they would have diverted customers from Treble to Fossez. The present competition between the two companies attracted little attention.
The ladies never bothered to knock when they entered each other’s offices as long as the door was open. They knew they were welcome. Nelly did alarm Siss, however, when she asked her if she minded her closing the door.
“How are you, Nelly?” Why had she asked that? Hadn’t Nelly already told her “fine!” that very morning? What else can you say when somebody asks you how you are?
Well, Siss got a different answer this time: “This arthritis gitten me down. When I git up in de morning, I don’t know how I gone git to work you know what I mean?” Although she was talking black, she didn’t mean to be funny.
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“Isn’t there anything you can take? Is a doctor taking care of you?”
“Yo doctor taking care a me, he doing da best he can. He give me lots a dings, dey don’t do no good no mo.”
The slow but sure decline of Fossez had been tormenting Siss, but now she realized that she was about to lose one of her two most valuable colleagues. Unable to hide her distress, she asked:
“Would it help if you had a shorter workday? We could hire somebody to do your busy work and you could come later in the morning, even go home earlier and, of course, no pay cut. How could we do without you?”
“You don’t need me, Siss. You got Wren, she can do my job, she can do it better dan me wid dis arthritis. Maybe I better go now while you doing pretty good.”
Siss jumped up, ran around her desk and hugged Nelly, who hugged her back. Tears were streaming down their faces.
Patting Siss on the back and swinging her with her r’s: “I’m sorry! Everbody gonna git der, Doz got der too soon, now it’s my turn, dings gotta go on widdout me. Now don’t you cry, Child, you got work ta do and you can do it, you know what I mean? You got to do it for Doz. He was my broder and you’s my sister. You know dat.”
Siss had never heard Nelly say d instead of th before.
When she felt discouraged, which was happening more and more often now, she visited Wren. This time, she wandered into Wren’s office as if she didn’t know where she was going. Without a word, Wren got up, took the tea kettle, went and filled it with water and put it on the office hotplate. She put two cookies, instead of the usual one, on a plate for each of them. Although she liked chocolate chips, fig newtons and other no-nos, they didn’t indulge in the usual playful argument over how many they could afford. Their banter flickered out a few times, so Wren had to light it up again. Finally, she looked at Siss and asked:
“What’s wrong, Mom?”
“... It’s another challenge for me, but it’s an opportunity for you. Nelly is retiring.”
“Oh, no!”
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“Arthritis. The beating she took from her husband years ago! But there are other reasons she was too kind to mention. Relations with the employees aren’t any fun any more. Our busines has shrunk, we don’t need as many management personnel... But we need you, Wren, we need you to replace Nelly. She said you can do the job, but I already knew that. You will have greater responsibilities and you will get a substantial raise. Will you accept?”
“... Yes, of course, if you think I can do it.”
“I have been thinking that for a long time.” She gave her a hug.
Siss hated the commonplace of waiting for the other shoe to drop, but she had to admit that it applied to her. While hugging Janet never occurred to her, the relations between them had become cordial since Janet had been godmothering Christy, who continued to distress them both. How often they commiserated with each other! Siss was always glad to see Janet when she entered her office, but she dreaded another request for permission to close the door. She knew it would come, finally it did, she nodded and felt faint.
“Siss, I have to tell you something that hurts me as much as it will hurt you. Fossez and Chinski is smaller than it used to be. With the support of N & I, Treble has grown and we have shrunk. Market conditions have favored them over us despite our efforts and their blunders. You don’t need me any more and my salary is costing you too much. You and Wren can do the job without me and maybe even better. Under the circumstances two will be better than three.”
“... Blake?”
“Yes, Touchdown Sportswear has expanded all over the Midwest and he is looking for new sites in the east, the west and the south. For over a year, he has been telling me:
‘I need you, but I don’t want to take you away from Siss if she needs you.’”
“Blake has always treated me pretty well. It depends on what he means by need. When Nelly left, I lost an arm. If you leave, I will lose the other one.”
“You and Wren can do it, Siss, and I meant it when I said you could do it better without me. You have been very kind to me, I never asked for a raise and yet you gave me one every chance you had. I haven’t even discussed salary with Blake, leaving has nothing to do with money. I feel like Nelly: Fossez and Chinski has been my home and family. You know how much I admired Doz; well, I admire you too, our friendship means a lot to me, I appreciate your willingness to share Christy with me, she’s the only child I have. [Tears:] Siss, I can’t go unless you let me.”
Now Siss was hugging Janet, consoling Janet. Who was going to console Siss?
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“All of our Kindergarten friends are congratulating me on a courageous and prudent decision, but Nelly and Janet decided for me. They deserve the congratulations; all I deserve is... is... ”
“Did they say that Fossez has a better chance of competing with an N & I franchise if management is smaller and more agile?”
“Yes, they were saying that, but they only wanted to find an excuse for me.”
“I don’t think so because it makes sense. You and Wren will be able to make decisions faster and implement them more promptly. What I would do if I were you is request a renegotiation of your contract with the union to raise the salaries of workers with special skills. The IBLD has eroded the differentials between the wages of the skilled and the unskilled workers. They will probably try to play you off against Treble and hold out for a general raise, but you have to refuse. If they reject your offer, they will alienate Fossez employees who qualify for such raises. Remember when people were saying ‘cheaper with Treble, safer with Fossez’? You have to get back to that. Even if Treble tries to compete with you in high-end moving and storage, they will waste time and money trying to catch up in a market they have always neglected. They would probably even make costly mistakes.”
“All right, Doz. I will try.”