My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead (27 page)

The only other representative of “the children” to whom Corinne had referred with such pathos, was Martin’s daughter, Portia (Viola’s). She’d been hardly more than a toddler at last sight, though she now appeared to be about—what? Well, anyhow, a little girl. “What are the domestic arrangements?” Otto asked. “Is she living with Martin and Laurie these days, or is she with her mother?”

“That crazy Viola has gone back to England, thank God; Martin has de facto custody.”

“Speaking of Martin, where is he?”

“I don’t ask,” Corinne said.

Otto waited.

“I don’t ask,” Corinne said again. “And if Laurie wants to share, she’ll tell you herself.”

“Is Martin in the pokey already?” Otto asked.

“This is not a joke, Otto. I’m sorry to tell you that Martin has been having an affair with some girl.”

“Again?”

Corinne stalled, elaborately adjusting her bracelet. “I’m sorry to tell you she’s his trainer.”

“His
trainer
? How can Martin have a trainer? If Martin has a trainer, what can explain Martin’s body?”

“Otto, it’s not funny,” Corinne said with ominous primness. “The fact is, Martin has been looking very good, lately. But of course you wouldn’t have seen him.”

All those wives—and a trainer! How? Why would any woman put up with Martin? Martin, who always used to eat his dessert so slowly that the rest of them had been made to wait, squirming at the table, watching as he took his voluptuous, showy bites of chocolate cake or floating island long after they’d finished their own.

“I’m afraid it’s having consequences for Portia. Do you see what she’s doing?”

“She’s—” Otto squinted over at Portia. “What is she doing?”

“Portia, come here, darling,” Corinne called.

Portia looked at them for a moment, then wandered sedately over. “And now we’ll have a word with Aunt Corinne,” she said to her fist as she approached. “Hello, Aunt Corinne.”

“Portia,” Corinne said, “do you remember Uncle Otto?”

“And Uncle Otto,” Portia added to her fist. She regarded him with a clear, even gaze. In its glade of light and silence they encountered one another serenely. She held out her fist to him. “Would you tell our listeners what you do when you go to work, Uncle Otto?”

“Well,” Otto said, to Portia’s fist, “first I take the elevator up to the twentieth floor, and then I sit down at my desk, and then I send Bryan out for coffee and a bagel—”

“Otto,” Corinne said, “Portia is trying to learn what it is you do. Something I’m sure we’d all like to know.”

“Oh,” Otto said. “Well, I’m a lawyer, dear. Do you know what that is?”

“Otto,” Corinne said wearily, “Portia’s father is a lawyer.”

“Portia’s father is a global-money mouthpiece!” Otto said.

“Aunt Corinne is annoyed,” Portia commented to her fist. “Now Uncle Otto and Aunt Corinne are looking at your correspondent. Now they’re not.”

“Tell me, Portia,” Otto said; the question had sprung insistently into his mind, “what are you going to be when you grow up?”

Her gaze was strangely relaxing. “You know, Uncle Otto,” she said pensively to her fist, “people used to ask me that a lot.”

Huh! Yes, that was probably something people asked only very small children, when speculation would be exclusively a matter of amusing fantasy. “Well, I was only just mulling it over,” Otto said.

“Portia, darling,” Corinne said, “why don’t you run into the kitchen and do a cooking segment with Bea and Cleveland?”

“It’s incredible,” Otto said when Portia disappeared, “she looks exactly like Sharon did at that age.”

“Ridiculous,” Corinne said. “She takes after her father.”

Martin? Stuffy, venal Martin, with his nervous eyes and scoopy nose, and squashy head balanced on his shirt collar? Portia’s large, gray eyes, the flaxen hair, the slightly oversized ears and fragile neck recapitulated absolutely Sharon’s appearance in this child who probably wouldn’t remember ever having seen Sharon. “Her
father
?”

“Her father,” Corinne said. “Martin. Portia’s father.”

“I know Martin is her father. I just can’t divine the resemblance.”

“Well, there’s certainly no resemblance to— Wesley—” Corinne called over to him. “Must you read the newspaper? This is a social occasion. Otto, will you listen, please? I’m trying to tell you something. The truth is, we’re all quite worried about Portia.”

Amazing how fast one’s body reacted. Fear had vacuumed the blood right through his extremities. One’s body, the primeval parts of one’s brain—how fast they were! Much faster than that recent part with the words and thoughts and so on, what was it? The cortex, was that it? He’d have to ask William, he thought, his blood settling back down. That sort of wrinkly stuff on top that looked like crumpled wrapping paper.

“Laurie is worried sick. The truth is, that’s one reason I was so anxious for you to join us today. I wanted your opinion on the matter.”

“On what matter?” Otto said. “I have no idea what this is about. She’s fine. She seems fine. She’s just playing.”

“I know she’s just playing, Otto. It’s
what
she’s playing that concerns me.”

“What she’s playing? What is she playing? She’s playing radio, or something! Is that so sinister? The little boys seem to be playing something called Hammer Her Flat.”

“I’m sure not. Oh, gracious. You and Sharon were both so right not to have children.”

“Excuse me?” Otto said incredulously.

“It’s not the radio aspect per se that I’m talking about, it’s what that represents. The child is an observer. She sees herself as an outsider. As alienated.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being observant. Other members of this family could benefit from a little of that quality.”

“She can’t relate directly to people.”

“Who can?” Otto said.

“Half the time Viola doesn’t even remember the child is alive! You watch. She won’t send Portia a Christmas present. She probably won’t even call. Otto, listen. We’ve always said that Viola is ‘unstable,’ but, frankly, Viola is
psychotic
. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? Portia’s
mother
, Otto. It’s just as you were saying,
there’s a geneti
—”

“I was saying
what
? I was saying nothing! I was only saying—”

“Oh, dear!” Laurie exclaimed. She had an arm around Portia, who was crying.

“What in hell is going on now?” Wesley demanded, slamming down his newspaper.

“I’m afraid Bea and Cleveland may have said something to her,” Laurie said, apologetically.

“Oh, terrific,” Wesley said. “Now I know what I’m paying them for.”

“It’s all right, sweetie,” Laurie said. “It all happened a long time ago.”

“But why are we celebrating that we killed them?” Portia asked, and started crying afresh.

“We’re not celebrating because we killed the Indians, darling,” Laurie said. “We’re celebrating because we ate dinner with them.”

“Portia still believes in Indians!” one of the little boys exclaimed.

“So do we all, Josh,” Wesley said. “They live at the North Pole and make toys for good little—”

“Wesley, please!” Corinne said.

“Listener poll,” Portia said to her fist. “Did we eat dinner with the Indians, or did we kill them?” She strode over to Otto and held out her fist.

“We ate dinner with them and
then
we killed them,” Otto realized, out loud to his surprise.

“Who are you to slag off Thanksgiving, old boy?” Wesley said. “You’re wearing a fucking bow tie.”

“So are you, for that matter,” Otto said, awkwardly embracing Portia, who was crying again.

“And
I
stand behind my tie,” Wesley said, rippling upward from his chair.

“It was Portia’s birthday last week!” Laurie interrupted loudly, and Wesley sank back down. “Wasn’t it!”

Portia nodded, gulping, and wiped at her tears.

“How old are you now, Portia?” William asked.

“Nine,” Portia said.

“That’s great,” William said. “Get any good stuff?”

Portia nodded again.

“And Portia’s mommy sent a terrific present, didn’t she,” Laurie said.

“Oh, what was it, sweetie?” Corinne said.

Laurie turned pink and her head seemed to flare out slightly in various directions. “You don’t have to say, darling, if you don’t like.”

Portia held on to the arm of Otto’s chair and swung her leg aimlessly back and forth. “My mother gave me two tickets to go to Glyndebourne on my eighteenth birthday,” she said in a tiny voice.

Wesley snorted. “Got your frock all picked out, Portia?”

“I won’t be going to Glyndebourne, Uncle Wesley,” Portia said with dignity.

There was a sudden silence in the room.

“Why not, dear?” Otto asked. He was trembling, he noticed.

Portia looked out at all of them. Tears still clung to her face. “Because.” She raised her fist to her mouth again. “Factoid: According to the Mayan calendar, the world is going to end in the year 2012, the year before this reporter’s eighteenth birthday.”

“All right,” Corinne whispered to Otto. “Now do you see?”

“You’re right, as always,” Otto said, in the taxi later, “they’re no worse than anyone else’s. They’re all awful. I really don’t see the point in it. Just think! Garden garden garden garden garden, two happy people, and it could have gone on forever! They knew, they’d been told, but they ate it anyway, and from there on out,
family
! Shame, fear, jobs, mortality, envy, murder . . .”

“Well,” William said brightly, “and sex.”

“There’s that,” Otto conceded.

“In fact, you could look at both family and mortality simply as byproducts of sexual reproduction.”

“I don’t really see the point of sexual reproduction, either,” Otto said. “
I
wouldn’t stoop to it.”

“Actually, that’s very interesting, you know; they think that the purpose of sexual reproduction is to purge the genome of harmful mutations. Of course, they also seem to think it isn’t working.”

“Then why not scrap it?” Otto said. “Why not let us divide again, like our dignified and immortal forebear, the amoeba.”

William frowned. “I’m not really sure that—”

“Joke,” Otto said.

“Oh, yes. Well, but I suppose sexual reproduction is fairly entrenched by now—people aren’t going to give it up without a struggle. And besides, family confers certain advantages as a social unit, doesn’t it.”

“No. What advantages?”

“Oh, rudimentary education. Protection.”

“ ‘Education’! Ha! ‘Protection’! Ha!”

“Besides,” William said. “It’s broadening. You meet people in your family you’d never happen to run into otherwise. And anyhow, obviously the desire for children is hardwired.”

“ ‘Hardwired.’ You know, that’s a term I’ve really come to loathe! It explains nothing, it justifies anything; you might as well say, ‘Humans have children because the Great Moth in the Sky wants them to.’ Or, ‘Humans have children because humans have children.’ ‘Hardwired,’ please! It’s lazy, it’s specious, it’s perfunctory, and it’s utterly without depth.”