During her more leisurely hours Dragnie also meditated on her relationship with Nathan A. Banden. Now that the termination of her pregnancy had taken place, what would his response be? Did she still desire him as a lover? Did he her? None of these questions possessed ready answers, but one thing seemed certain: Banden had been deeply hurt by her decision to decline motherhood, and even more betrayed by her refusal to allow him to accompany her to Glatt’s Gorge. He had said he would be moving back to his parents’ house, and she could not but assume that he had done so.
She arrived at the penthouse under cover of night and in the concealment of an unfashionable garment. Accompanied by her chauffeur, Dragnie planned to gather some essential clothes and business materials, and then to rendezvous with Glatt at their secret safe-house. She debarked from the elevator on the top floor of the world-famous, prize-winning Johnsonwood Building, unlocked her front door, and rushed in.
“Hello, Dragnie,” Nathan A. Banden said.
Dragnie did not permit herself to scream the epithet she so desperately wanted to scream. “Hello,” she replied.
“How are you feeling?”
“A little weak still, but—“
He chuckled. “Weak? From your five day tryst with your in-effect husband? You must have had a fine vacation indeed.”
“I?” she chuckled. “Vacation? I was in bed the whole time.”
“I’m sure you were in bed—where, one may assume, you enjoyed the superior amatory talents of your other lover, a man old enough to be my father. But why tell me, Dragnie? It’s certainly none of my business. Not any more.”
“I mean, Nathan, that I sustained a bad cut, lost a lot of blood, and had to stay in bed while I recuperated. I hardly saw John at all. He’s been busy with his advisers, talking about the People’s States.”
“Yes, well, I’m sure he has been. Somebody has to save our way of life, so it might as well be the great and heroic John Glatt.”
“Is something wrong, Nathan?”
“With society? Oh, I think one could say that, yes. Ask yourself this, Dragnie: What if somebody threw a war and nobody caught it?”
“I?” she cried. “Ask myself that? Don’t be preposterous.”
“I? Preposterous?” he chuckled. “Tell me, are you aware of the fact that the Earth is ninety percent water? And what does that make Man?”
“Wet?”
“A fish. Man is a fish, Dragnie. And there is nothing that you, or John Glatt, or the rest of your tightened-up rich friends, can say or do that will make it any different.”
“I see,” Dragnie said. “These are uncharacteristic expressions, Nathan. Do I sense a shift in your values? Has your perception of reality altered in some vital way?”
“It has.”
“Then I can only conclude that you have been sleeping with another woman.”
“I have. Wait here.”
Banden strode out of the living room toward his bedroom in the rear. Several moments later he re-appeared with a young woman. Both of them were naked. Joining hands, they stood before Dragnie.
“Dragnie,” Banden said, “Angel Human and I are going to have a sexual relationship. I trust that will receive your permission and blessing. It of course will have no effect on my relationship with you, so there is no rational reason for you to object to it.”
Dragnie smiled, as a man might smile at an apprentice displaying competence at a task of which the man had been teacher. “Of course I permit it,” she said. “Of course I give it my blessing. It’s nice to meet you, Angel Human.”
“Cool. Hi.”
“In fact, Nathan, why don’t you and Angel Human join us for our dinner party tonight? We’re having a few friends over and the conversation will be sparkling and enlightening, since it will deal exclusively with reality.”
“We’d love to,” Banden said icily. “Wouldn’t we, Angel?”
“Far away from sight.”
“But Dragnie,” Banden added. “This apartment hardly looks like a place scheduled to be the scene of a sparkling dinner party.”
“Oh, we’re not holding it here. We have to temporarily move to a secret location while John works out some problems with the government.”
“A secret location?” Banden’s mouth displayed an amused smile of purest mockery and somewhat-alloyed contempt. “It sounds like they’re after him. Has an arrest warrant been issued for John?”
“Not formally, no,” Dragnie replied coolly. “But he is wanted for questioning.”
Angel’s eyes grew wide with the expression of willed innocence and falsely childlike wonder typical of her generational and cultural cohort. “Really? The Pigs are after your husband? Far away from sight!”
“We’re not married. In any case, the matter is being addressed,” Dragnie said. “But you two may feel free to stay here and I’ll send Fritz to pick you up at six. Casual dress, naturally. Now excuse me, I must pack and run.”
Dragnie strode from the living room toward her own bedroom, noting, as she went, Angel Human’s comment to the young man. “She seems nice,” the girl said.
“The paradox of the unconscious, my dear, is that we are only aware of it when we are not aware of it, and by then it is too late.”
A cascade of glittering laughter followed this witticism as the preparation and imbibing of cocktail drinks continued. Dragnie was about to wonder where her final two guests were when they arrived: Nathan A. Banden and Angel Human were ushered into the Glatts’s secret location by Fritz, the loyal chauffeur.
The apartment was an elegant, spacious three-bedroom duplex in a nondescript building at an unregistered address, and was concealed from the sight of men by a three-dimensional camouflage projection conveying the deceptive impression of a leather tannery. Banden was at first confused when, expecting a sumptuous yet tasteful example of architectural splendor as the site of the evening’s activity, he and Angel were escorted into what appeared to be a dilapidated industrial structure. But their disorientation upon entering the building was nothing compared to his bedazzlement as he was introduced to the array of accomplished, glamorous guests.
Dragnie rose, put her perfectly mixed martini down onto the handsome table designed by a famous table designer, and conducted the introductions. “May I present Grace Adams, the beautiful movie star, and her husband, Derek Maxwell, the popular British spy. Grace is the extramarital lover of my husband, John Glatt. Now may I introduce noted author Andrea Smith, her lover, Paul Rogers, the brilliant physicist, and her husband, top economist Alan Greenback. Beside them are prima ballerina Marie Francais, who is Alan’s mistress, and her husband, Nils Nillssonsonson, the Norwegian philologist, who is Andrea’s sometime-paramour. Everybody, this is Nathan A. Banden, my extramarital lover, and his little girlfriend, Angel Human.”
As Banden and Angel shook hands with the other guests and found places for themselves on the elegant, spare sectional Danish seating system created by a famous Danish sofa creator, Dragnie took the keenest pleasure in observing Nathan’s reaction to this dazzling array of achievement, beauty, and intelligence. The chic and flattering clothes on the women, and their expertly-applied makeup; the stylish dress of the men, and the ease with which they discoursed on abstruse matters of political economy, aesthetics, and epistemology; the sophistication of everyone’s cigarettes—did Banden know how privileged he was to be included in this event? The question went unanswered in Dragnie’s mind as Nils Nilssonsonson directed a jovial query to Glatt in his charmingly-Norwegian-accented English.