Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates (55 page)

Broiled pink and abraded still
pinker, as if lightly chewed by the invisible teeth of eternity, he returned,
panting, leg muscles aching, to the oasis, quaffed a whole pitcher of water,
enjoyed a sponge bath (a washing that transcended maintenance), and then a
snooze. When, refreshed and cologne splashed, he set off at last through the violet
tingle—the smokeless smoke—of Syrian dusk, he was bound for supper but primed
for party.

The sisters were already at table. He
could hear Maria Deux’s dour voice saying grace as he approached the dining
hall door. He passed the hall without entering, going instead around back to
the kitchen, where in a small attached shed, a kind of pantry annex, he knew
the order’s wine to be stored. The pantry door was padlocked, causing him to
wonder if it had always been secured in that fashion or if special precautions
had been taken as a result of his residency at the oasis.

Had he patience, a simple tool or two
(a hairpin or nail file would have sufficed), and a lower ebb of spirit, he
surely could have picked the lock, for, despite his imperfect dexterity, he had
successfully completed the burglary course at Langley. In his present mood,
however, he summarily rejected that option, returning, instead, to his room to
wrest the Beretta from its crocodile-hide cocoon. Back at the pantry, he aimed
the weapon at the padlock, and with a little grunt of enthusiasm (a truncated
wahoo, one might reasonably categorize it), he squeezed off the rounds
necessary to blow apart the lock, adding one or two more for good measure. For
a split second, tiny burrs and shards of steel whizzed angrily in all
directions, like metallic bees in a bug riot.

Alas, the pantry proved to contain
but six bottles of wine. It was his own fault, the increased frequency of
festivities from monthly Italian nights to weekly blues nights having depleted
the stock. “One must make do,” he muttered philosophically, and after jamming
the pistol in his waistband, he gathered up the sextet of dusty green bottles
and with difficulty, due to the manner in which a burden of almost any size
could create an imbalance for a stiltwalker, tottered off to the dining hall.

The sisters had left the table and
were bunched in the doorway, Domino out in front like the leader of the pack.
He realized then that the gunshots had frightened them: they probably imagined
themselves under another terrorist attack. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to
give you a scare. Firearms are to Americans what fine food and drink are to the
French: can’t hold a proper celebration without them.” He treated the women to
his sweetest, most luminous grin. “And we do, I understand, have something to
celebrate this evening.” He swung the grin like a searchlight, narrowing its
beam on Domino. “Pippi, please relieve me of this libationary freight—and
uncork it, if you would, so that it might inhale, to salubrious effect,
nature’s precious oxygens.” Nearly toppling over in the process, he thrust the
bottles upon the redhead and then clomped off to fetch his computer cum disk
player. “Don’t lament,” he called. “Our separation will be most endurably brief.”

True to his word, he was back in
minutes, though he did not sit with them until he had unleashed Frank Zappa’s
atonal, polyphonic rendition of “Happy Birthday” upon the gathering.
Deliberately shunning Domino’s table (she shared it, as usual, with Bob, Pippi,
and ZuZu), he took a seat (his feet planted carefully upon a chair rung) with
those four diners—a relatively older group—presided over by Masked Beauty. To
appease him, perhaps, there was an open bottle of wine on each table. The other
bottles had disappeared. “One must make do,” he mumbled, dividing his table’s
wine into four glasses (Maria Deux declined on the grounds of a troubled
liver), and persuading, with forceful gestures, the other table to follow suit.

Gazing at Domino along a line of sight
that bisected the wad of bubblegum that God, not wishing to defile his golden
throne, had deposited on Masked Beauty’s compliant proboscis, Switters raised
his glass. All present held their breath. To their relief, he said only, “To
Simone ‘Domino’ Thiry! Long may she brighten this ball of clay with her grace!”
Everyone uttered an assent of some sort, as she was cherished by her
colleagues, and Domino reddened rather charmingly.

After the toast, things settled down
to normal for a while, although Zappa’s contorted instrumentals kept a slight
edge on the proceedings. However, as the wine receded—and it had completely
vanished long before the eggplant-and-feta pie and the salad of chopped tomato
and cucumber had been properly dispatched, the reverend sisters being
thoughtful eaters—social intercourse attained a degree of animation typically
seen only on blues nights and not always then. There was lively conversation
and even a titter or two.

“Maria, O Maria, blessed lady of the
tender repast, our genius engineer of endless culinary triumphs, please show us
again the gastronomic mercy for which you are rightly renowned and allow the
assembled celebrants to refill their cups, for though we be unworthy of the
grape, any unsated thirst might be construed as an insult to the occasion. The
birthday girl must be feted, and for that, naught but your prime-time vintage
will do.” Switters was guessing that the extra wine had been stashed with Maria
Une’s provisions. The hunch proved correct, for Masked Beauty, somewhat
hesitantly, gave a nod of assent to the flustered old cook, whereupon Maria Une
shuffled back to the kitchen and retrieved a pair of the missing bottles. When
the vessels had been decorked and their contents distributed—both Marias this
time abstained, leaving Switters little choice but to assume their allotment—a
warm atmosphere enveloped the dining hall. Or, perhaps, Switters only imagined
it.

Pippi lit candles at each table, as
it was past the hour for her to turn off the power, and Switters withdrew the
poem from his pocket, unfolded it, and read it to himself in the flickering
glow while awaiting Pippi’s return from the generator shed. The poem was about
some golden tablets, inscribed with secrets of the soul and heart and hidden in
the pyramids, and how a wise Egyptian king had refused to allow Plato to mooch
the tablets on the grounds that the Greek—weakened by his priggish philosophy
of asexual love—mightn’t be able to bear up under the weight of so much robust
passion. Clearly, the implication (he could imagine the poem being analyzed by
his professor at Berkeley) was that the divine secrets are withheld from those
who lack the courage to accept and explore their own sensual natures.
An
accurate enough sentiment
, he heard his inner voice agreeing.
But I
can’t palm off this piece of anti-Platonic propaganda on Domino as a birthday
present. What could I have been thinking?

In a move to outflank his imp, he
thrust a corner of the page into the nearest candle flame. The paper instantly
ignited, and he held on to the burning poem until the fire reached his
fingertips, whereupon he dropped the last smoldering corner of it onto the
wooden tabletop. (Good thing Pippi had never gotten around to sewing those
pseudo-Italian tablecloths.) All conversation ceased at the onset of this
little pyromaniacal display, and he sensed himself the object of apprehensive
surveillance. In the middle of the burning, however, he overheard Domino say
dismissively, “Mr. Switters is a CIA agent,” as if that explained everything; and
he could tell that the sisters were conjuring images of him in a Moscow attic,
on a secluded Cuban beach, or in a dim café in Casablanca, setting fire to
coded instructions, plans for a deadly new weapon, or a single mysterious word
scrawled in blood, in order that he might save a democratic government or a
brave double agent, who happened to be, in her spare time, a beautiful contessa
who’d donated her fortune to Catholic orphanages; and they, the Pachomian
sisters, were reveling in these images. Reveling in them.

Inspired, Switters scooped up the
poetry ashes and ate them. Then, lips all black and flaky, he raised his glass
as if for another toast. His glass, alas, was empty. Registering his
predicament, Masked Beauty handed him her wine, which was largely untouched. He
smiled his appreciation. He took a gulp to wash down the lingering black snow
of charred paper, and he said, “To nuns! On the occasion of Sister Domino’s
birthday, I salute all nuns, for nuns are the most romantic people on earth.”

That seemed to go down pretty well
with the assembly (although Domino was rolling her eyes a bit), so he
elucidated. “Each nun gives her heart completely to a man from a distant place
and a distant time, a legendary husband she loves beyond everything else, though
he comes to her only in her prayers and her dreams. Every true romantic lives a
life of idealized otherness, but it is the nun who lives it most purely and
with the least self-serving compromise.”

At this, the sisters applauded. Even
Domino clapped, although her clapping seemed watered down with politeness.
Switters bowed and was about to continue, was about, in fact, to launch into a
diatribe against Church fathers for relegating nuns to subservient positions,
was about to go so far as to accuse their beloved old St. Pachomius of actually
establishing nunneries as a devious means of getting devout women out of the
way, neutralizing their sexuality, and exploiting their unpaid labor.
Fortunately, perhaps, the three elder sisters at his table chose that moment to
stand and excuse themselves, Maria Une to soak her varicose shanks, Maria Deux
because she sensed her liver trying to turn itself into pâté (if only she could
envision a ball of mystic white light in its stead!), and Masked Beauty to get
her masked beauty sleep.

Leaping onto his chair, Switters
waved off their departure. “Please, sisters, grant me a moment more. I’ll be
leaving you soon, and before I go, I’d like to say. . . . Mmm, you know I could
speak my piece with ever so much more, uh, ease and, uh, precision, were my
tonsils frescoed with another light coat of the cardinal pigment: Maria, you
flesh-bound instrument of numinous nurturance, I know you harbor two more
bottles in your cupboard, and while I’d never be so rapacious as to covet them
both . . .” At that point, ZuZu, who was weaving a bit and looking rather
ruddy, filled his glass to the brim from a bottle she’d apparently retrieved
from the kitchen when no one was looking. “Oh, thank you, my dear! God bless.
Now. Mmm. Delicious. Now.” He cleared his throat.

“I’ve spent the greater part of my
adult life in the company of men. Yes. And men that no honest, plainspoken,
hard-working, God-fearing folk would want to be around for eleven seconds:
wild-eyed, restless, and often dangerous men; fellows who could not drink this
fine
vin rouge
of yours without losing control; rebels and dreamers and
lunatics, soldiers-of-fortune, out-of-work mercenaries, vagabond scholars,
expat journalists, gamesters, bohemians, and failed international speculators;
irresponsible men who insist that something interesting must be happening
pretty much at all times—or else, watch out! Men who’d enthusiastically stay up
for days arguing over the nuances of a book even its own author couldn’t
completely understand, yet refuse to devote half a minute to an insurance
policy, a mortgage, or a marriage contract; men . . . well, I think you see the
kind of fellows, bless their poor doomed butts, who I’m talking about here, and
I mention them only to underscore the contrast between such men and the
wholesome feminine companionship I’ve enjoyed these past nearly four months.
Yes. Mmm.”

Following a big swig that nearly
exhausted his libation, he, gazing at the ceiling, went on to laud the women
for their devotion to simple tasks and for practicing stability without
stagnation, although, as the tribute lengthened, he began referring to them in
such overheated terms as “sunstruck outcasts,” “desert zealots” and “wilderness
saints.” Eventually, as lines from Thomas Gray’s
Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard
(“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen / And waste its
sweetness on the desert air”) commenced to stray into the monologue, he
realized that he’d lost his French and had been prattling away in English.
Good
God! Not this!
he thought, as he suddenly imagined he heard himself
crooning “Send in the Clowns.” But it wasn’t he. Someone had slipped his album
of Broadway show tunes into the disk player.

As candle flames swayed to the
haunting, bittersweet Sondheim refrain (part of the song’s appeal was that it
was impossible to tell whether it was cynically ironic or sentimentally
self-pitying), Switters glanced around the dining hall and discovered that his
audience had abandoned him. Only three of the ex-nuns remained. Bob and ZuZu
were dancing. Slow dancing. Dancing cheek to cheek, fairly clinging to each
other, the circus frizz (somehow musically appropriate) of the one almost
engulfing the practical Julia Child crop of the other.
My, my
, he
thought.
Am I responsible for this, or has it been going on for some time?
The only other remaining diner was Domino, who sat at the next table, her arms
folded across her chest, regarding him with an amused, sympathetic smile.

He seemed momentarily dazed but
quickly recovered. “A man must get carried away with himself from time to
time,” he said, “or run the risk of his juices drying up.” Domino nodded, still
smiling, and the laser finished with Sondheim and moved on to the next cut,
which happened to be the terminally romantic “Stranger in Paradise.” Indicating
the blissfully gliding ZuZu and Bob, he inquired if she wouldn’t like to dance.
She replied that while his talents were numberless, she really didn’t believe
he could dance on stilts. “Push your table over here,” he said, and when she
had coupled the two tables, he hopped up onto the combined surface, bidding her
to follow. “I’ve frequented Asian nightclubs with smaller dance floors than
this,” he said.