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Infuriatingly the manuscript stops there. We have no further information. Does anyone know where are located Napeague, Montauk? We suspect somewhere in what used to be the United States of America. Should anyone be able to throw light on the matter, please contact us in the usual way.
— The Editors, Fiji Times —
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10. An Encounter with the America Cup
There we were, leisurely sailing back from a short cruise aboard my trimaran Tlőn that took us around the Elizabethan Islands, Cape Cod and Nantucket. I am in the cabin doing nothing much, perfectly relaxed with that feeling so particular to sailboats in which the farniente becomes a profound satisfaction needing no outside stimulus to reach a perfection hardly ever attained in other circumstances. From the helm P. calls me: “I think I see America Cup boats. Want to watch?”
I come up on deck, and sure enough still far away we can see two elegant sailboats clearly standing out against the clear blue sky. Behind them, coming up on the horizon, but still indistinct, there seems to be a bunch of motor boats. “The spectator fleet,” I reflect, and we continue on our leisurely way, a light breeze of 4–5 knots on a beam reach, towards a black and orange navigation buoy we want to get close enough to read its number-- according to the good principle that one should always obtain a positive fix whenever possible, even in good weather, because one never knows. And this is particularly true of the North-East coast of the United States, especially here in Narragansett Bay, where a shining sun can find itself eclipsed by a thick fog in one hour or even less.
As we get closer to the buoy a motor launch sporting flags and pennants showing it belongs to the organizing committee of the America Cup comes along; very politely an official asks us to “please leave free 200 feet on the Southwest and 150 feet to the East of the marker, so that the contenders can without hindrance effect their turn for their close-hauled leg into the wind.”
Of course we comply with the request but remain in the vicinity in order to see everything close-by. Here they come: two graceful and beautiful yachts running before the wind, the spinnakers pulling toward the sky, the crew crouching yellow on deck to present the least resistance possible to the wind … and behind them, but we don’t pay any attention, the spectator fleet.
We are in a privileged position. The two 12-meters go by less than 300 feet away. They turn around the marker, the spinnakers falling and the genoas rising with a rhythm and ease marvelous to behold. Our eyes are glued on them, me at the helm, P. trying to take photos. (My camera will prove to have malfunctioned. What a pity!)
Suddenly she exclaims: “Good heavens! Look what’s coming at us!” And a few hundred feet away, straight toward us rushes the spectator fleet, a huge coastguard cutter in the lead, whence comes a disincarnated voice: “Trimaran ahoy! If you intend to follow the race, fall back under my starboard bow!”
Already they crowd over us, all 500 of them, the lesser of which seems as huge as the Queen Mary – well, perhaps thirty really large power yachts--, with an indescribable roar of motors that fill the waters and skies, clashing and echoing and preventing any thought. “Redjeb! Do something!” yells P. Me too, I am really shaken, but try to maintain my calm. After all, we are under sail, they are under power:
“We have the right of way,” I shout, struggling to maintain Tlőn on its course.
We are among them. The waters are green and foamy white, raised high by the conflicting wakes. All of sudden the sea has become rough with steeper waves than in a blow in shallow waters. The motor leviathans pass close enough to touch. Tlőn is squeezed into a sandwich of pair after pair of these monsters navigating the waves created by their own turbulence.
We can see at eye level the color of their underbodies. To this day I can recall the sight of an enormous yacht high perched on a green and yellow breaker, its bluish keel appearing on the verge of squashing Tlőn’s starboard float far below in the trough, and, high above in the skies, leaning over us, heads and arms armed with cameras; and an elegant schooner sporting a steadying sail, a distinguished looking lady strolling alone on the poop deck, barely deigning to glance down at us, with the whole boat perched on its wave visible from keel to masthead.
With all that a never-ending roar, a racket not to be believed, with the engines laboring to counterbalance the sudden pressure changes created by the propellers popping out of the waters on all sides because of the turbulence and overlapping swirls and whirlpools. To my mind come visions of buffalo stampedes, of herds of rutting and trumpeting elephants, of war movies in which foot soldiers are pursued by roaring tanks seeking to crush them.
I have a hard time trying to control my trimaran. The contrary currents created by the wakes and the propellers push its prow hither and yon, the abrupt and steep waves make it pitchpole violently, the overbearing hulls on all sides further cut the already weak wind, making Tlőn loose way with her sails flopping helplessly.
I am wearing only an old pair of shorts. Leaning down to grab the main sheet while struggling with the tiller in order not to loose direction, crack! My shorts split in the back from waist to crotch, and I graciously bestow on all these cameras a wonderful sight. Yes, these cameras were eager for worthy subjects, since the spectator fleet is kept at such a long distance from the contenders, and with good reason as this adventure shows, that given the distance these amateur photographers could not expect to get good shots of the race proper; so my backside no doubt adorns someone’s favorite photo of that America Cup.
The fleet is past. The waters calm down, peace returns to the placid seas. We are still shaken, P. and I. Tlőn resumes her way towards Groton, her home port, where we will learn that the duel we just witnessed was between Swerige, the Swedish yacht, and Australia. As far as we are concerned the true struggle was between Tlőn and the spectator fleet, with Tlőn the winner, if only because my small trimaran survived without damage, the only casualty my shorts.
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11. A Visit to the Dentist
He was an old man, white-haired, clean-shaven, ramrod straight, very correctly dressed with coat and tie despite the July heat. He spoke with a strong Brooklyn accent, slowly and deliberately, with long pauses between sentences, as if sinking into an inner world from which he had to drag out the words formulating his thoughts. We were talking in my car on our way to Sag Harbor, a small town on the South Fork of Long Island where I intended to move, and where he had a house for sale that I wanted to inspect. He was describing Sag Harbor and his house with so much love in his halting voice, without any attempt at salesmanship, that I finally asked:
— But if you love your house so much, why aren’t you living there? Why did you go back to live in Brooklyn? Didn’t you just explain to me that the happiest day in your life was when you left the city for Sag Harbor?
— You’re absolutely right, he said. But what can I do? My wife...
— Your wife? She doesn’t like Sag Harbor? Or the house?
— No, no, that’s not it at all, — he replied. — She really loved the house and the community, she preferred it by far to our place in Brooklyn...
He fell silent, absorbed in his thoughts. As you may well believe, my curiosity was strongly aroused. I prodded him, gently but persistently, until despite his initial reticence he finally told me his story.
“We had been living in Sag Harbor for a couple of years. It was very pleasant. Instead of a cramped apartment, we had a comfortable house, a large garden, trees, flowers. Our children, who are married, often came to visit us, sometimes even leaving our grandchildren in our care for a day or two while they went about their affairs. That was for us a great joy. We had soon made new friends in the neighborhood, without losing track of our old friends and relatives in Brooklyn, so that we never felt alone or cut off from our former life.
“My wife used to go to Brooklyn more often than I did, for two reasons. She had a sister who still li
ved there, and they got along perfectly. And above all there was her dentist, the only dentist in whom she had confidence, who had been taking care of her since I don’t know when.
“One morning she left Sag Harbor to go to her dentist in Brooklyn. By nightfall she had not yet come back, but I didn’t think anything of it, since after the dentist she often visited her sister and spent the night there. Around 10 o’clock I received a phone call from my sister-in-law: ‘John, I think you’d better come. Leonia‘s locked herself in my bedroom and refuses to come out or even to unlock the door. When I speak to her she hardly answers, and then only to yell through the locked door: Leave me alone!’
“Naturally that very night I drove over to Brooklyn. My sister-in-law and her family were most upset. It was very late, they wanted to go to bed, but despite all their efforts, despite my prayers, my threats even, nothing doing: Leonia refused to unlock the bedroom door or even to open it enough for some food or toilet supplies. That was ten years ago. My wife is still there!”
And as I was exclaiming in shocked surprise, he added:
“Oh she’s much better now. For the last three years she has been going to the bathroom, and she is beginning to venture all the way to the kitchen, but only on the condition that no one see her, and even that no one be in the apartment. Even I, I haven’t seen set my eyes on her in all that time!”
He was telling this incredible story very matter-of-factly, as if something ordinary. Of course for him, after ten years, his and his wife’s lifestyle had become the norm.
“Yes, at first it was very hard. We thought it was but a passing fancy, that Leonia was going to snap out of it. But a week later she was still locked up in her sister’s bedroom, at the door of which we would leave some food, which she hardly touched, as well as the utensils necessary for her toilet. We tried everything: talking to her, exhorting her, scolding, begging, praying: nothing worked. Finally we called a psychiatrist. He had with her many sessions from behind the door, that cost me quite a bit, incidentally. But after some time he said that he could do nothing, that the only solutions were either to commit her and take her away by force to a psychiatric hospital or to leave her alone, that time may smooth the situation.
“Commit her by force, my Leonia, lock her up with all those mad people? Never. We bet upon time. But as you see, we’re still waiting.”
His sister-in-law had to move to a new apartment with her family. He himself was forced to leave his Morristown house and move to Brooklyn to attend to his wife’s needs. For a while he continued going to Morristown from time to time to take care of his house, his garden, his flowers. Then he rented it out.
“But why do you want to sell it now, after all this time?”
“Well, one must give in finally to the facts of life. I always hoped that my wife would get better, that we would eventually go back to Morristown. But almost ten years have gone by. I am now used to Brooklyn. I have my habits there, and I can see that even though Leonia seems better she is by no means ready to move or even to let herself be seen by anybody. So since my tenants’ lease ran out and the house is empty...”
I didn’t buy the house, and I didn’t see my old man again. Yet sometimes I find myself wondering if his wife Leonia is still locked in the bedroom, or even if they are still alive. But above all a question haunts me, that I had not thought to ask: “What could the dentist have done to that elderly woman for her to react in such an extraordinary manner?”
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12. Linda Mother-of-God
She is a young woman in appearance no different from millions of women of her age and social class. She is well read, well educated, well traveled — she was an air hostess — and is married to an architect who, although not a top player, is very successful in his profession. They have several children, all girls.
I met Linda and Tom in East Hampton when they were newly wed. At that time they were living in Manhattan, where they lead the active life of a typical successful couple, hard working, hard playing, with an active social life. One note of differentiation, yet fairly common in a country where any group, whether political, ethnic or religious, is a minority relative to the assembled group of all the others: she belonged to a tiny Protestant sect, the Evangelical Lutherans, the history of which she liked to recount.
As many New Yorkers do, when the oldest girl reached the age to attend school, they decided to leave the city, where the public schools are a real jungle and teaching severely deficient. But, unlike the majority of their peers, rather than settle in an affluent suburb, they bought an old farm some 25 miles from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Tom establishes his architectural bureau.
This is a evangelical area, where from the beginning settled various religious groups. The Pennsylvania Dutch, the largest group, still speak a German-inflicted dialect; the Amish reject all modern inventions and live prosperous in their farms they work with exclusively human and animal labor. There are also the humble Mennonites with their quaint attire, the singing Moravians originating from Bohemia. The Schwenks, now extinct but whose village Schwenksville is still there, were one large tribe where everyone wore the same name.
The intensity of religious sentiments was mirrored by the belief in witchcraft: to this day no building is considered finished before it is decorated with at least one cabalistic "hex" sign against evil fate, that people say they regard as a curious relic of distant times, but at the bottom of their heart, perhaps…? It is also in this region that we find place-names that remind us directly and unabashedly how much sexuality is integral to religiosity. One small town is called "Blue Balls" — it is true that winters are very cold in that area! Another is named "Intercourse". A certain highway is named "Honeyspot Road" – and the honey in question had nothing to do with bees.
Near these places other cities are called, in all modesty, Bethlehem, Emmaüs, or Nazareth. Philadelphia itself is also well known for having been founded by the Quakers, whose very name comes from this physical reaction to repressed sexuality, without any doubt reinforced by the sound diet of Quaker Oats of which my generation suffered so much! And in this vein, let us note that the sect of Shakers is extinct because they repressed sexuality to the point that they segregated men and women at all times, so that they did not have children. They did leave however an inheritance of highly regarded furniture.
Yes, this country of the Pennsylvania Dutch is full of evocative names. At the beginning of the sexual revolution, in the sixties, when Allan Ginsberg published the magazine Eros, so restrained compared to what is being done today, it was mailed to subscribers from one of these small towns — Intercourse, if I am not mistaken – so that the postal stamp would add spice and daring to the publication. Poor Ginsberg! He is the only publisher to do prison time for obscenity, the timid obscenity of Eros!
When I visited Tom and Linda I found them installed in their farm that they had succeeded in modernizing while retaining its old traits: heavy beams, low doorways with clouted oak doors, wide plank flooring with irregular seams, antique American furniture with sober lines and heavy construction combining the practical with the comfortable. Yes, this young couple that had everything for them seemed settled in happiness. After a pleasant short stay in this rolling hills country, I took my farewell, promising to return soon.
And the years went by. I had some indirect news: she would have plunged into religion, things did not go too well between her and her husband. Nothing specific, or sensational. I had almost forgotten their existence when, during a car trip I noticed a road sign: Perkiomenville 8 miles. On the spur of the moment, I decided to pay an unannounced visit.
I drive in the farm yard, get out of my car, look around me. Everything is just as I remembered, but with a neglected feel. The foliage is just hanging there, wild grass and weeds abound, the lawns are badly mowed. Perhaps I had been here in another season? I head toward the farmhouse when I hear a voice behind me. This is Tom in arm shirt calling from in front of the fo
rmer stables. Greetings, handshakes, exchanges of friendships ... “And Linda? And children? How is everybody?” I sense in him a discomfort, a reluctance.
— Come on in, I’ll explain.. Yes, the stables are now my domain...
He leads me to a small apartment above the stables, of a stripped-down appearance astonishing for one who had known the old Tom with his zest for life, hospitability, ready to laugh, to crack a joke, to have a drink: whitewashed walls, an iron bed, a chair, a small table, some shelves with books with severe bindings, an immaculate all-white kitchen corner. It is a kind of monastic cell, a cell where no one has ever lived, where the walls themselves remain cold and detached, without even this austere feeling that only a past human presence can bring forth. A dead cell. “This is where I have been living for several years,” said Tom, “ever since Linda banished me from the farmhouse where she lives with her children in the company of a female preacher.”
And he added that Linda let him see his daughters only a few minutes a day, that's the time to see them approached, and, as he was anxious not to miss them, why didn’t I go say hello to Linda, who probably already knew that I was here? I could come back to see him later.
I felt like staying in this atmosphere like I felt hanging myself, but since I was there ... It was Linda who opened the door and immediately lead me to the living room. The female preacher in question was there. She was a woman of about sixty, simply dressed in a non-descript old-fashioned style – where today could one find this kind of cotton stockings? Her grayish hair fell straight, framing a severe face, sallow but almost without wrinkles. During the entire time of my visit she stayed sitting on the edge of the couch, without saying a word, motionless, her downcast eyes never watching me, never looking at Linda. But Linda constantly glanced at her while speaking to me, obviously on the lookout for signs of approval or disapproval she seemed to read in her physiognomy, which seemed to me totally impassive.
Linda showed me the children. I remembered the two oldest. There were also two smaller ones, all girls, and, to my surprise, Linda said: "There is a new baby, a two-month old girl." Upon entering the room, the children went straight to curtsy in front of the woman preacher, who seemed to me to not even acknowledge their presence. There was none of the spontaneous talk common to children of that age and, after this ceremonial, they were sent to their father, over there, on the other side of the courtyard, for their short daily visit. All this in a constrained, stiff manner, disturbing to witness.
I looked around me. Yes, that living room was just about like I remembered, but with a hard to pinpoint sterile, unhealthy aspect, despite a certain disorder like that normally associated to the presence of small children. I noticed on the coffee table, partly hidden under magazine of a religious appearance, a hunting crop. I was feeling like leaving quickly, as I could not bear this agonizing atmosphere. But Linda talked to me, Linda held me. It was as if she needed to explain, to justify herself, in her eyes as my own, to reassert herself in front of the preacher ...
And so I learned her story, which Tom confirmed later. In fact there not much of a story, but rather one sentence, a single one heard years before, uttered on his deathbed by Linda’s father, a severe Lutheran pastor, in one of his rare moments of lucidity, diminished as he was by the disease that killed him. Yes, one sentence, just one, a sort of prediction of a mind disturbed by the approach of death, one short sentence that Linda heard, treasured, tried to reject, but nevertheless penetrated deep within her, where slowly those words burrowed, grew, insidious and hidden, until, many years later, the undermining done, they dared to appear in broad daylight and invade the whole of this young woman in appearance so ordinary.
Those words, she repeated them to me several times while relating the circumstances that surrounded her childhood, the classic circumstances of an austere religious fervor that penetrates everything, suppresses and represses everything and, as a consequence of this repression causes the feeling of sin to surge and affirm itself, that sin which is impossible to escape from. Since if everything human is called sin, then sin is everywhen and everywhere, and will impel to acts which will justify that appellation. The whole history of Puritanism of any religion is there to attest to it.
Yes, it is easy to imagine the impact on Linda, in this kind of atmosphere, of the terrible prophecy spoken on his deathbed by her father the pastor, who united in himself fatherhood, masculinity, the divinity of his severe Lutheranism pushed to the extreme; a prophecy that this oh so young 15 year-old girl could not in any way accept or even consider consciously, which she repressed and hid in the depths of her being, and that one day reappeared in all its power. Because the words were said, the sentence pronounced. Here is that phrase, in its heavy simplicity:
"You will bear in your womb the promised Messiah."
Written just like this, that phrase can make one smile, and I must say that when Linda told it to me I had a hard time not to burst laughing, since how is one to take such silliness seriously ? But for Linda, Tom, their children, their entourage, for what it had done to their lives, there is really no cause for laughter.
It was very natural that as soon as she could Linda wanted to leave behind her puritan youth, with all her strength join modern life: what was more modern than being an air hostess? What was more linked to the most advanced technology? And she met Tom, an architect with a good career, and they lived modern and happy in the cosmopolitan world of New York and the Hamptons. But the decision came to settled away from the big city, and they chose, probably unconsciously, propelled by mysterious and unrecognized inner swarmings and under the pretext of the children’s good, they chose that Pennsylvania area heavy with religiosity, witchcraft and sexuality, evangelical countryside where the paternal prophesy could blossom in an eminently favorable climate, until it consumed everything.
And I see my friend Tom, prisoner of his love for his children, prisoner of his upright character, of his love for Linda, of his quasi-existential anguish of Him-that-does-not-deserve, doubtless nurtured and strengthened by Linda, victim and executioner, I see him fighting for a “normal” life. I see him attracted, repulsed, again attracted and again repulsed and even more repulsed by the Monster, until he was physically exiled to the stables, chained there by his deepest feelings.
But to the terrible — or the laughable, depending on one's perspective, is added the grotesque: Linda gives birth only to girls! And how in Heaven could the expected Messiah be a girl? Jesus Christ is a man, he cannot be but a man: Is he not the son of God? Who ever heard of a daughter of God? That is totally unthinkable, impossible. It would be a blaspheme to even think it, it would be the negation of all religion…
« What did I do that God gives me only baby girls ? It is obligatory that my father’s prophecy be fulfilled, as this is the definition of any prophecy. If it does not come to pass it is because I am not worthy. This is my punishment, this is my cross that God sends me only girls. I must make myself worthy, worthy. If I am not worthy, I will give birth uniquely to daughters, and my father, my own father, the representative on earth of the divinity, will be proved to be a false prophet. And it will be me who will have betrayed him! "
And Linda redoubles her religious fervor. She lives with her female preacher, she banishes Tom, a man ”who attracts me, whom I love so much, oh horror! Let him disappear from in front of my eyes, let the temptation he represents be suppressed, let the remembrances of sin he awakes be kept far away ....”
But she must give birth to the Messiah, the paternal prophecy announced it. Thus, when spring arrives, here is Linda lingering on the porch, who lets herself seen by Tom, who smiles at him, speaks with him at length. The female preacher — how comes?—has disappeared, it is like she had never been there. Linda invites Tom in the living room. Its austerity has been erased, there are no more any religious magazines, no riding crop. There are flowers everywhere, fruits on glass dishes, cookies, music is being played, the music from WFLN, the classical music station
that Tom loves so much.
She offers him a drink, allows him to take her hand. And him, poor sap, every time lets himself be caught, every time believes that the bad times are about to vanish. It is like a new honeymoon in this spring that follows the long sad and icy winter. Tom is happy, he entertains new projects, has new ideas, plans new architectural creations. And then, one day he comes back home from his office and light-heartedly rushes to the entrance to the farm, the door opens on the female preacher who brutally signifies him exile.
Nine months later once again Linda gives birth to a girl…
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13. Yellow is the Color of Mourning
Slide 1:
The wading fountain in Washington square is dry, and many people are lounging on the inner steps, indolently leaning against the circular rim. Some are reading, some talking, most are just drowsing. All are enjoying the warm spring sun playing upon their skin.
In the basin center is a three?foot high pedestal covered with an iron grating. There a young woman is stretched on a blanket, face down. Against her dark hair a small curly white dog is sitting, very straight.
Leisurely a few persons walk across the basin. A tall black man raises to his lips a shiny brass saxophone, whence he coaxes appeals melancholy. Searching for who knows what, a dog goes by, energetic.
Calm. Drowsiness. Farniente.
Slide 2:
A young man has jumped onto the pedestal. He wears his blond hair long and his mustache droopy. Hanging from his shoulder, a bag. He is standing at the feet of the reclining young woman. From his right hand stretched straight out yellow filaments are hanging.
He opens his hand. A broken egg falls, splatters on the cement floor.
First yellow stain.
Slide 3:
The young man dips his hand into his bag. He pulls out another egg. His eyes are glued The upon the young woman at his feet. He crushes the egg in his clenched hand. With a flick of the wrist, he throws it behind him..
Second yellow stain on the gray concrete.
Slide 4:
The young man is seized with a feverish agitation. Again he dips his hand in his shoulder bag, pulls out yet another egg, brandishes it over his head. Three times he shouts in a shaky voice: "It's the last one! It's the last one! It's the last one!" And with an immense whirling gesture, smashes it upon the ground.
Third yellow stain, with bursts of yellow spokes.
Slide 5:
He turns toward the young woman stretched at his feet. She has not moved, has not even glanced at him. One instant he leans over her, looks straight at her hidden face. The small curly dog wags his remnant of a tail.
Slide 6:
The young man straightens. His left hand clasping the strap of his bag, his right arm swinging high, he jumps off the pedestal, walks away, with one bound clears the circular rim of the basin, and strides off?stage with long nervous steps.
A hundred pair of eyes follow in his wake.
Slide 7:
A blues phrase arises from the shimmering saxophone. The young woman sits up, looks in the direction the young man disappeared. Then, all at once, she lets herself fall on the blanket, her face in the hollow of her arms. Tremors shake her shoulders. The noises of the city come back, compelling.
Sunshine. Egg stains. In certain countries, yellow is the color of mourning …
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14. The Screamers
Massive, she steps into the subway car. She fills the whole door frame. Her vast belly continues her vast breasts in a single pendulous lump. Her legs — thick towers — are spread wide apart to balance her immense weight. Her arms hang straight down, pushed open sideways by the rolls of fat, like a dancer's feet in fifth position. Head and face are in proportion, yet surprisingly young looking. Heavily, she pushes into the crowd that pulls aside for her, or rather that she splits open like the bulbous prow of a minesweeper parting the seas. Her expression is hard, stubborn, fierce even behind her iron-rimed glasses.
She is not yet entirely inside when the doors begin to close. Effortlessly, she pushes them back with her elbows. Finally she has made it inside and, furious, hits one of the doors with a brutal open-handed blow that reverberates throughout the car. The doors close, the train starts moving with the deafening noise of screeches and grinds that characterizes New York City's subway; and, above the din, at the top of the audible spectrum, a shrill voice is heard: it is from her, from that obese black girl, that the shrieks are coming.
Impossibly, her voice climbs even higher. Louder and louder she shouts indistinct words where insults can be discerned. She howls her passion. she screams her rage at being a prisoner of her condition in a world where she finds herself assailed from all sides, even by subway doors, locked into the jail of her misery, of the heavy thickness of her own flesh from behind which she cannot escape, she cannot gain freedom, she cannot even reveal herself to herself.
There she goes, making her way down the subway car, striking with her immense fists partitions, seats, windows. She hits so hard, her whole obese mass behind each blow, it is astonishing that nothing breaks ... but soon a glass-pane cracks, then another... Relentlessly, she keeps hitting her fists. Other cracks appear, then still others, a small piece of glass falls off, then another. Her hands are bleeding but she does not feel anything and continues hitting, striking, howling, screaming her pain and her anguish.
Someone has alerted a conductor. The train stops at the next station where MTA police are already waiting. Not without difficulty, they talk to her, get through to her, calm her, and finally take her away, probably to Bellevue, New York City's dump for disturbed persons.
The train continues on. The passengers look at each other. No one says a word.
A Hunting Trip to Daghestan and other stories Page 6