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Then, while Shrimp was in the hospital, Mrs. Hanson had made the material up into a pair of curtains and hung them in their bedroom as homecoming surprise and peace offering. Shrimp had to admit that the chintz had met its just reward.

Shrimp seemed content to float through each day without goals or ideas, just watching the cunts and cocks wafted by the breeze and whatever other infinitesimal events the empty room presented her with. Teevee annoyed her, books bored her, and she had nothing to say to visitors. Williken brought her a jigsaw puzzle, which she worked on on an upside-down dresser drawer, but once the border was assembled she found that the drawer, through it had been measured in advance, was an inch too short. Surrendering with a sigh, she swept the pieces back in the box. In every way her convalescence was inexplicable and calm.

Then one day there was a tapping at the door. She said, prophetically, “Come in.” And January came in, wet with rain and breathless from the stairs. It was a surprise. January’s address on the West Coast had been a well-kept secret.

Even so, it wasn’t a large enough surprise. But then what is?

“Jan!”

“Hi. I came yesterday too, but your mother said you were asleep. I guess I should have waited, but I didn’t know whether—”

“Take off your coat. You’re all wet.”

January came far enough into the room to be able to close the door, but she didn’t approach the bed and she didn’t take off her coat.

“How did you happen to— ”

“Your sister mentioned it to Jerry, and Jerry phoned me up. I couldn’t come right away though, I didn’t have the money. Your mother says you’re all right now, basically.”

“Oh, I’m fine. It wasn’t the operation, you know. That was as routine as taking out a wisdom tooth. But impatient me couldn’t stay in bed and so—” She laughed (always bearing in mind that life is comic too) and made a feeble joke. “I can now, though. Quite patiently.”

January crinkled her eyebrows. All yesterday, and all the way downtown today, all the way up the stairs, feelings of tenderness and concern had tumbled about in her like clothes in a dryer. But now, face to face with Shrimp and seeing her try the same old ploys, she could feel nothing but resentment and the beginnings of anger, as though only hours had intervened since that last awful meal two years before. A Betty Crocker sausage and potatoes.

“I’m glad you came.” Shrimp said half-heartedly.

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

The anger vanished and guilt came glinting up at the window of the dryer. “The operation, was it for—Was it because of what I said about having children?”

“I don’t know, January. My reasons, when I look back, are still confused. Surely I must have been influenced by things you said. Morally I had no right to bear children.”

“No, it was me who had no right. Dictating to you that way. Because of my principles! I see it now.”

“Well.” Shrimp took a sip from the water glass. It was a heavenly refreshment. “It goes deeper than politics. After all, I wasn’t in any immediate danger of adding to the population, was I? My quota was filled. It was a ridiculous, melodramatic gesture, as Dr. Mesic was the first—”

January had shrugged off her raincoat and walked nearer the bed—She was wearing the nurse’s uniform Shrimp had bought for her how many years ago. She bulged everywhere.

“Remember?” January said.

Shrimp nodded. She didn’t have the heart to tell her that she didn’t feel sexy. Or ashamed. Or anything. The horror show of Bellevue had taken it out of her—feeling, sex, and all.

January slipped her fingers under Shrimp’s wrist to take her pulse. “It’s slow,” she observed.

Shrimp pulled her hand away. “I don’t want to play games.”

January began to cry.

“You know?

“I’d like to see it working again, the way it was meant to. That may sound like less than the whole revolution, but it’s something that I can do, that I can try for. Right? Because a building is like … It’s a symbol of the life you lead inside it.

“One elevator, one elevator in working order and not even all day long necessarily. Maybe just an hour in the morning and an hour in the early evening, when there’s power to spare. What a difference it would make for people like us here at the top. Think back to all the times you decided not to come up to see me because of these stairs. Or all the times I stayed in. That’s no way to live. But it’s the older people who suffer most. My mother, I’ll bet she doesn’t get down to the street once a week nowadays, and Lottie’s almost as bad. It’s me and Mickey who have to get the mail, the groceries, everything else, and that’s not fair to us. Is it?

“What’s more, do you know that there are two people working full time running errands for the people stranded in their apartments without anyone to help. I’m not exaggerating. They’re called auxiliaries! Think what that must cost.

“Or if there’s an emergency? They’ll send the doctor into the building rather than carry someone down so many steps. If my hemorrhaging had started when I was up here instead of at the Clinic, I might not be alive today. I was lucky, that’s all. Think of that—I could be dead just because nobody in this building cares enough to make the fucking elevators function! So I figure, it’s my responsibility now. Put up or shut up. Right?

“I’ve started a petition, and naturally everyone will sign it. That doesn’t take any effort. But what does is, I’ve started sounding out a couple of the people who might be helpful and they agree that the auxiliary system is a ridiculous waste, but they say that even so it would cost more to keep the elevator running. I told them that people would be willing to pay for tickets, if money’s the only problem. And they’d say yes, no doubt, absolutely. And then—fuck off, Miss Hanson, and thank you for your concern.

“There was one, the worst of them so far, a toadstool at the MODICUM office called R.M. Blake, who just kept saying what a wonderful sense of responsibility I have. Just like that: What a wonderful sense of responsibility you have, Miss Hanson. What big guts you have, Miss Hanson. I wanted to say to him, Yeah, the better to crush you with, Grandma. The old whitened sepulcher.

“It’s funny, isn’t it, the way we’ve switched round? The way it’s so symmetrical. It used to be I was religious and you were political, now it’s just the reverse. It’s like, did you see
The Orphans
the other night? It was sometime in the Nineteenth Century and there was this married couple, very cozy and very poor, except that each of them has one thing to be proud of. the man has a gold pocket watch, and the woman, poor darling, has her hair. So what happens? He pawns his watch to buy her a comb, and she sells her hair to get him a watch chain. A real ding-dong of a story.

“But if you think about it, that’s what we’ve done. Isn’t it? January?

“January, are you asleep?”

“They talk about the end of the world, the bombs and all, or if not the bombs then about the oceans dying, and the fish, but have you ever looked at the ocean? I used to worry, I did, but now I say to myself—so what. So what if the world ends? My sister though, she’s just the other way—if there’s an election she has to stay up and watch it. Or earthquakes. Anything. But what’s the use?

“The end of the world. Let me tell you about the end of the world. It happened fifty years ago. Maybe a hundred. And since then it’s been lovely. I mean it. Nobody tries to bother you. You can relax. You know what? I like the end of the world.”

“Of course, there’s that. When people want something so badly, say a person with cancer, or the problems I have with my back, then you tell yourself you’ve been cleared. And you haven’t. But when it’s the real thing you can tell. Something happens to their faces. The puzzlement is gone, the aggression. Not a relaxing away like sleep, but suddenly. There’s someone else there, a spirit, touching them, soothing what’s been hurting them so. It might be a tumor, it might be mental anguish. But the spirit is very definite, though the higher ones can be harder to understand sometimes. There aren’t always words to explain what they experience on the higher planes. But those are the ones who can heal, not the lower spirits who’ve only left our plane a little while ago. They’re not as strong. They can’t help you as much because they’re still confused themselves.

“What you should do is go there yourself. She doesn’t mind if you’re skeptical. Everybody is, at first, especially men. Even now for me, sometimes I think—she’s cheating us, she’s making it all up, in her own head. There are no spirits, you die, and that’s it. My sister, who was the one who took me there in the first place—and she practically had to drag me—she can’t believe in it anymore. But then she’s never received any real benefit from it, whereas I—Thank you, I will.

“Okay. The first time was at a regular healing service I went to, about a year ago. This wasn’t the woman I was talking about though. The Universal Friends—they were at the Americana. There was a talk first, about the Ka, then right at the start of the service I felt a spirit lay his hands on my head. Like this. Very hard. And cold, like a washcloth when you’ve got a fever. I concentrated on the pain in my back, which was bad then, I tried to feel if there were some difference. Because I knew I’d been healed in some way. It wasn’t till after the meeting and out on Sixth Avenue that I realized what had happened. You know how you can look down a street late at night when things are quieter and see all the traffic lights changing together from red to green? Well, all my life I’ve been color-blind, but that night I could see the colors the way they really are. So bright, it was like—I can’t describe it. I stayed up all that night, walking around, even though it was winter. And the sun, when it came up? I was on top of the bridge, and God! But then gradually during the next week it left me. It was too large a gift. I wasn’t ready. But sometimes when I feel very clear, and not afraid, I think it’s come back. Just for a moment. Then it’s gone.

“The second time—thanks—the second time wasn’t so simple. It was at a message service. About five weeks ago. Or a month? It seems longer, but—Anyhow.

“The arrangement was, you could write down three questions and then the paper’s folded up, but before Reverend Ribera had even picked up mine he was there and—I don’t know how to describe it. He was shaking her about. Violently. Very violently. There was a kind of struggle whether he’d use her body and take control. Usually, you see, she likes to just talk
with
them, but Juan was so anxious and impatient, you see. You know what he was like when his mind was set on something. He kept calling my name in this terrible strangled voice. One minute I’d think, Yes, that’s Juan, he’s trying to reach me, and the next minute I’d think, No, it can’t be, Juan is dead. All this time, you see, I’d been trying to reach him—and now he was there and I wouldn’t accept it.

“Anyhow. At last he seemed to understand that he needed Reverend Ribera’s cooperation and he quieted down. He told about the life on the other side and how he couldn’t adjust to it. There were so many things he’d left unfinished here. At the last minute, he said, he’d wanted to change his mind but by then it was too late, he was out of control. I wanted so much to believe that was true and that he was really there, but I couldn’t.

“Then just before he left Reverend Ribera’s face changed, it became much younger, and she said some lines of poetry. In Spanish—everything had been in Spanish of course. I don’t remember the exact words, but what it said, basically, was that he couldn’t stand losing me. Even though this would be the last heartbreak that I’d ever cause him—
el último dolor.
Even though this would be the last poem he’d write to me.

“You see, years ago Juan used to write poems to me. So when I went home that night I looked through the ones I’d saved, and it was there, the same poem. He’d written it to me years before, after we first broke up.

“So that’s why when somebody says there’s no scientific reason to believe in a life after this one, that’s why I can’t agree.”

“April. April’s the worst month for colds. You see the sunshine and you think it’s short-sleeve weather already and by the time you’re down on the street it’s too late to change your mind. Speaking of short sleeves, you’ve studied psychology, I wonder what you’d say about this. Lottie’s boy, you’ve seen him, Mickey, he’s eight now—And he will not wear short sleeves. Even here in the house. He doesn’t want you to see any part of his body. Wouldn’t you have to call that morbid? I would. Or neurotic? For eight years old?

“There, drink that. I remembered this time and it’s not so sweet.

“You wonder where children get their ideas. I suppose it was different for you—growing up without a family. Without a home. Such a regimented life. I don’t think any child—But perhaps there are other factors. Advantages? Well, that’s none of my beans-on-toast. But a dormitory, there’d be no privacy, and you, with all your studying! I wonder how you do it. And who looks after you if you’re sick?

“Is it too hot? Your poor throat. Though it’s little wonder that you’re hoarse. That book, it just goes on and on and on. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m enjoying it. Thoroughly. That part where she meets the French boy, or was he French, with the red hair, in Notre Dame Cathedral. That was very… What would you call it? Romantic? And then what happens when they’re up on the tower, that was a real shockeroo. I’m surprised they haven’t made a movie of it. Or have they? Of course I’d much rather be reading it, even if… But it isn’t fair to you. Your poor throat.

“I’m a Catholic too, did you know that? There’s the Sacred Heart, right behind you. Of course, nowadays! But I was brought up Catholic. Then just before I was supposed to be confirmed there was that uprising about who owned the churches. There I was standing on Fifth Avenue in my first woolen suit, though as a matter of fact it was more of a jumper, and my father with one umbrella, and my mother with another umbrella, and there was this group of priests practically screaming at us not to go in, and the other priests trying to drag us over the bodies on the steps. That would have been nineteen-eighty … One? Two? You can read about it now in history books, but there I was right in the middle of a regular battle, and all I could think of was—R.B. is going to break the umbrella. My father, R.B.