Stories in an Almost Classical Mode Read Free Page A

family. “You are a Weill,” Marcus’s father said. “I want you to feel free to come to my house at any time.” “Thank you,”Marcus said. He was thirteen. Marcus says, “Yes. Well. These people have no self-pity. They go
at
things.” He makes a gesture of someone grabbing. It crosses his mind to say that they are as bold as doctors, that what they want—their habit—is to fall in love. But instead he falls silent. His father said, “Marcus, I want to say I’m glad you’re—Well, let me say a father and his son are not happily parted.” “Thank you,” Marcus said. His father said, “You never asked me about the divorce. You must have a good many questions.” “No, sir. I mean, no, thank y-you, sir.” His father said, “Marcus, I’m not doing this for
my
sake.” He paused, he said, “Don’t you want to talk anything over with me?” Marcus said, “It’s up to y-you, sir. If you w-want to talk, s-sir.” Marcus says, “You have any questions about the camera angles? Oskar? Jehane?” His father said, “Never mind. We’ll try again later.” Marcus was ashamed of his father. What did talk mean? Talk didn’t mean anything. Jehane cries,
“Marc, c’est impossible!”
The day is
triste,
the city, Rome, is
triste,
unendurable on the occasion of a death. “How can we work?” she demands. She is insistent, bitter, contemptuous. “How can we be expected to work as if nothing has happened? A woman is dead. It is a terrible thing. A terrible omen. My God.”
    Nanna said, “Your allowance will be fifty dollars a month. I expect you to keep a record of your expenditures. Someday you will have money of your own, and you must start now to learn how to take care of it.”
    Oskar, eyeing Jehane curiously, strokes his long, muscular throat. Jehane is always unsettled before starting a movie; the geometry of old age and death appalls her. Marcus says, “Our work makes us monsters.” Jehane says sadly,
“C’est vrai; tu as raison.
” She lifts a sugar-encrusted roll to her mouth. Marcus thinks, That will stop the rathole … nothing can slither for a moment.
    The maid announces the car is at the door.
“Bon!”
cries Marcus.
“Allons,
everyone.” He chivies them along. The immense and dusty rooms swing up, float, descend behind him.
    Two boats rode at mooring in front of Nanna’s beach, which gardeners raked free of shells on Mondays and Thursdays. It was forbidden to swim or take out the boats on Sunday morning. Almost everyone in Scantuate went to church. “It is not polite to desecrate the Sabbath of others.” To be late or unwashed at mealtimes meant eating in the kitchen. One wore a jacket to dinner during the week, and a jacket and tie on weekends. The only permissible way to dress was in the casual,local, escape-from-the-city style. A daughter-in-law foolish enough to attempt chic would be greeted with “I love red silk at the seashore. So suitable.” Nanna’s sarcasm, politely uttered, continued until the offender was submissive. Anger or sulkiness or a son’s trying to persuade her—“Be more reasonable, Nanna”—would lead her to say, “It would seem I am not free to enjoy my own house.” Her son then admitted he was wrong or gathered his wife and children and left—so the family joke went—on still another of the flights of the Jews. As her children grew older and more prosperous, they came to visit Nanna for shorter periods of time and more formally. The worst thing Nanna could say was, “This is boring. This is so boring.”
    Alliat, the cameraman, talking of emulsions, lenses, says, “In
Rashomon
…” Nanna’s voice mocks: “Panchromatic! Emulsion! Egg tempera sounds so much nicer.” “Not really, Nanna. Listen—
egg tempera
…” Nanna rarely went to movies. Oskar, Jehane, Loesser, and Alliat climb into the black Lancia; the sunlight beats down on the white stones of the driveway, the nearby bushes; the atmosphere, Marcus thinks, is exactly that of a