The Maples stories - By John Updike Page 0,20

and without shadows. Newspapers that he had folded inside his coat for warmth slipped and slid. Carol beside him plucked at her little sweater, gathering it at her bosom but unable, as if under a spell, to button it. In the line behind him, Joan, secure between her id and superego, stepped along, swinging her arms, throwing her ballet slippers alternately outward in a confident splaying stride. ‘… let ‘er shine, let ‘er shine …’

Incredibly, they were traversing a cloverleaf, an elevated concrete arabesque devoid of cars. Their massed footsteps whispered; the city yawned beneath them. The march had no beginning and no end that Richard could see. Within him, the fever had become a small glassy scratching on the walls of the pit hollowed by the detonating pills. A piece of newspaper spilled down his legs and blew into the air. Impalpably medicated, ideally motivated, he felt, strolling along the curve of the cloverleaf, gathered within an irresistible ascent. He asked Carol, ‘Where are we going?’

‘The newspapers said the Common.’

‘Do you feel faint?’

Her gray braces shyly modified her smile. ‘Hungry.’

‘Have a peanut.’ A few still remained in his pocket.

‘Thank you.’ She took one. ‘You don’t have to be paternal.’

‘I want to be.’ He felt strangely exalted and excited, as if destined to give birth. He wanted to share this sensation with Carol, but instead he asked her, ‘In your study of the labor movement, have you learned much about the Molly Maguires?’

‘No. Were they goons or finks?’

‘I think they were either coal miners or gangsters.’

‘Oh. I haven’t studied about anything earlier than Gompers.’

‘Sounds good.’ Suppressing the urge to tell Carol he loved her, he turned to look at Joan. She was beautiful, like a poster, with far-seeing blue eyes and red lips parted in song.

Now they walked beneath office buildings where like mounted butterflies secretaries and dental technicians were pressed against the glass. In Copley Square, stony shoppers waited forever to cross the street. Along Boylston, there was Irish muttering; he shielded Carol with his body. The desultory singing grew defiant. The Public Garden was beginning to bloom. Statues of worthies – Channing, Kosciuszko, Cass, Phillips – were trundled by beneath the blurring trees; Richard’s dry heart cracked like a book being opened. The march turned left down Charles and began to press against itself, to link arms, to fumble for love. He lost sight of Joan in the crush. Then they were treading on grass, on the Common, and the first drops of rain, sharp as needles, pricked their faces and hands.

‘Did we have to stay to hear every damn speech?’ Richard asked. They were at last heading home; he felt too sick to drive and huddled, in his soaked, slippery suit, toward the heater. The windshield wiper seemed to be squeaking freedom, free-dom.

‘I wanted to hear King.’

‘You heard him in Alabama.’

‘I was too tired to listen then.’

‘Did you listen this time? Didn’t it seem corny and forced?’

‘Somewhat. But does it matter?’ Her white profile was serene; she passed a trailer truck on the right, and her window was spattered as if with applause.

‘And that Abernathy. God, if he’s John the Baptist, I’m Herod the Great. “Onteel de Frenchman go back t’France, onteel de Ahrishman go back t’Ahrland, onteel de Mexican, he go back tuh –”’

‘Stop it.’

‘Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t mind them sounding like demagogues; what I minded was that godawful boring phony imitation of a revival meeting. “Thass right, yossuh. Yos-suh!”’

‘Your throat sounds sore. Shouldn’t you stop using it?’

‘How could you crucify me that way? How could you make this miserable sick husband stand in the icy rain for hours listening to boring stupid speeches that you’d heard before anyway?’

‘I didn’t think the speeches were that great. But I think it was important that they were given and that people listened. You were there as a witness, Richard.’

‘Ah witnessed. Ah believes. Yos-suh.’

‘You’re a very sick man.’

‘I know, I know I am. That’s why I wanted to leave. Even your pasty psychiatrist left. He looked like a dunked doughnut.’

‘He left because of the girls.’

‘I loved Carol. She respected me, despite the color of my skin.’

‘You didn’t have to go.’

‘Yes I did. You somehow turned it into a point of honor. It was a sexual vindication.’

‘How you go on.’

“‘Onteel de East German goes on back t’East Germany, onteel de Luxembourgian hies hisself back to Luxembourg –”’

‘Please stop it.’

But he found he could not stop, and even after they reached home and she put him to bed, the