American Quartet Read Free

sexual revolution and the radicals in the church, especially the language change in the liturgy, the poor man was rendered punchy, always on the edge of rage, by the time she, the youngest daughter, began to menstruate.
    She grew up with threats of “mortal sin” and “you’ll roast in hell” burning in her ears—it was the only preventive medicine her parents knew, to make her preserve her virginity for some nice Irish boy. It was a losing battle. She saw them, beginning in her teens, as quaint relics of Irish myth. They abominated the freedom of contemporary life; it was all murky darkness, redeemed only by a sliver of light that was their love for her, and she forgave them everything.
    Events in her life seemed to happen in mysterious apposition. She moved to Washington to escape the family. Then, after a stint as an FBI office worker, she joined the Washington police “farces” as if to redeem herself in their eyes.
    It was not, of course, a woman’s place, and her father ranted and raved over such effrontery to the male imperative—until the day he saw her in uniform, and then he collapsed in tears of pride. Her two older sisters had, in their way, followed the family’s wishes. They had both married cops and were busily producing future members of the “farces,” as if the new techniques of birth control had never existed.
    Once she had gained family approval, she took a further step, a master’s in criminology at American University. This turned out to be a brutal attack on the maleness of her brothers-in-law, who had only their high school diplomas, creating family tensions.
    “Goddamned niggers, spics and broads are invading the forces,” one of her brothers-in-law, deep in his cups, had railed at her one day. Surprisingly her father had stood up for her.
    “She can’t help it if she was born a girl,” he shouted. “Besides, there’s more niggers in Washington. At least, she’s Irish. In my day we kept the kikes and niggers out. Before the politicians mucked things up.”
    She hadn’t the guts to introduce Bruce Rosen to her parents. He was the embodiment of all their pet hates. Jewish, a politician, a liberal, divorced and, frosting the cake, about to live with her in sin. They would find this out soon enough. Why hassle them? As she carried her two suitcases up the walk to his Georgetown townhouse, she felt the tug of guilt, the old trepidations. Bruce’s presence steadied her.
    “I left the light burning in the window,” he said, opening the door before she could insert the key.
    “You shouldn’t have.” She let him embrace her, annoyed by her own gaminess after a long sweaty day’s work. “I smell awful.”
    “ Au naturel ,” he said. He smelled beautiful, like a bar of lime soap. He was wearing a velour robe, which he drew slightly open to show his eagerness.
    “I’ve got a headache,” she giggled, making no move. She felt his surety, his comfort. He kissed her hair. He could wait.
    He released her to bring her suitcases in and carry them up the stairs of the three-story house. His ex-wife had decorated the house with charcoal gray carpets and red throwaways. She had arranged it around their collection of Chinese “Bloods,” antique sixteenth-century vases. His wife had thoughtfully left him three or four, although she had taken most of the antiques, which had tripled in value since their divorce settlement three years earlier.
    He hadn’t done much with the house since, and the divorce had left a big dent in his bank account. It was, he told Fiona, a ransom just to have the kids half-time. Also, it foreclosed on a nasty divorce proceeding that could have affected his political career. From the moment she met him she understood that as a “given.”
    Soaking in the hot tub, Fiona felt her body soften. It was her ritual to have a long soak after the day’s grimy work. It was as if she were washing away the film of human filth that daily clung to her.
    In her work she