"It's just the carrot-and-celery diet," Beth tells her. "Whenever I have the urge to nibble, I go for one of these baby carrots they sell everywhere now. Remember how carrots used to come into Philly from the Delaware truck farms, in a tied bunch with the dirt and sand still on them? Oh, how I used to hate that feeling of biting down on grains of sand- it sounded so loud in your head! No danger of that with these baby ones; they must come out of California and are all peeled down to exactly the same size. The only trouble is, if they sit too long in the sealed pack they come out slimy. The trouble with celery is, after a couple of stalks this ball of string collects in your mouth. But I'm determined to stick with it. It's easier to nibble cookies, God knows, but every bite adds on calories. A hundred thirty each, I was shocked to read on the package! The print is so fine, it's diabolical!"
That Hermione hasn't yet cut her short seems odd; Beth knows she's boring on the subject of doing without food, but it's all she can think about, and talking about it out loud holds her to it, keeps her from backsliding, despite her faint spells and stomach cramps. Her stomach doesn't understand what she's doing to it, why it's being punished, not knowing it's been her worst enemy for years, lying there under her heart crying out to be filled. Carmela won't lie on her lap any more, she's become so jumpy and irritable.
"What does Jack make of all this?" Hermione asks. Her voice sounds level and grave, a little halting and solemn, weighing her words. This prospect of a new, slim, presentable sister is something they both could be giggling about, the way they used to when sharing their room in tbe Pleasant Street house, sharing die sheer joy of being alive. As she got more serious and studious, Hermione stopped knowing how to giggle; she found it hard to lighten up. Beth wonders if that is the reason she never found a husband- Herm didn't know how to make men forget their troubles. She lacked ballon, as Miss Dimitrova had said.
Beth lowers her voice. Jack is in the bedroom reading and he may have read himself to sleep. Central High has started up again, and he has volunteered to teach a course on civics, saying he needs more exposure to these kids he is supposed to counsel. He claims they are getting away from him. He claims he is too old, but that's his depression talking. "He doesn't say much," she tells Hermione in answer to her question. "I think he's afraid to jinx it. But he has to be pleased; I'm doing it for him."
Herm asks, shooting her down again, "Is that ever a good idea, to do something because you think your husband wants it? I'm just asking-I've never been married."
Poor Herm, this has to be on her mind all the time. "Well, you're"-Beth stops her tongue; she had been about to say that Hermione was as good as married, to that bull-headed linebacker of a boss of hers-"as wise as anybody else, any other woman. I'm doing it for myself, too. I feel so much better, with just the twelve pounds off. The girls at the library can see the difference-they're very supportive, though at their age I couldn't imagine my figure ever getting out of hand. I said I'd like to help with the shelving instead of just sitting on my fat ass behind the desk Googling for kids too lazy to learn to Google for themselves."
"How does Jack like the change in his diet?"
"Well, I've tried not to change his, still giving him meat and potatoes. But he says he'd just as soon have simple salads with me. The older he gets, he says, the more eating anything disgusts him."
"That's the Jew in him," Hermione cuts in.
"Oh, I don't think so," Beth says, haughtily.
Hermione is then so silent Beth wonders if the connection has been broken off. Terrorists are blowing up oil pipes and power plants in Iraq, nothing is utterly secure any more. "How's the weather down there?" Beth asks.
"Still hot, once you leave the building. September in the District can be still muggy. The trees don't turn with all that color we used to get in the Arboretum. Spring is the season here, with the cherry blossoms."
"Today," Betfr says, as her starved stomach gives a pang that makes her grip the back of the kitchen chair for support, "I felt fall in the air. The sky is so absolutely clear, like"-like the day of Nine-Eleven, she started to say, but stopped, thinking it might be tactless to mention that to an undersecretary of Homeland Security, the fabled blue sky that has become mythic, a Heavenly irony, part of American legend like the rockets' red glare.
They must be thinking the same thoughts, for Hermione asks, "Do you remember you mentioned this young Arab-American Jack had taken such an interest in, who instead of taking Jack's advice to go to college had gotten a license to drive a truck because the imam at his mosque had asked him to?"
"Vaguely. Jack hasn't mentioned him for a while."
"Is Jack there?" she asks. "Could I talk to him?"
"To Jack?" She has never wanted to talk to Jack before.
"Yes, to your husband. Please, Betty. It may be important."
Betty, yet. "Like I was saying, he may be having a nap. We went out walking earlier, to give me exercise. The exercise is just as important as the dieting. It reshapes the body."
"Could you please go see?"
"If he's awake? Maybe it's something I could pass on to him, if he is. Having a nap."
"I don't think so. I'd rather talk to him myself. You and I can have our chat this week, when you're watching your serials."
"I've given them up, too-I associate them too much with nibbling. And they were getting scrambled up in my mind, all these characters. I'll go see if he's awake." She is mystified and cowed.
"Betty, even if he's not-could you wake him up?"
"I'd hate to do that. He sleeps so poorly at night." "I need to ask him some things right now, honey. They can't wait. I'm sorry. Just this once." Ever the older sister, knowing more than she does, telling her what to do. Reading her mind again, over the telephone, Hermione fondly admonishes Beth, in a voice that sounds like their mother's, "Now, no matter what happens, don't you fall off your diet."
On Sunday night, Ahmad fears he will not be able to sleep, on what is to be the last night of his life. The room around him is unfamiliar. It is one, Shaikh Rashid assured him, standing with him in the room earlier that evening, where no one can find him.
"Who would be looking for me?" Ahmad asked. His small, slight mentor-it was strange for Ahmad, as the two of them stood close together in collusion, to feel how much taller he had become than his master, who during Qur'an lessons augmented his height with that of the high-backed chair with the silver threads-gave one of his quick, knifing shrugs. The man this evening wore not his usual shimmering embroidered caftan but a gray Western-style suit, as if dressed for a business trip among the infidels. How else explain his shaving off his beard, the precisely trimmed gray-flecked beard? It had concealed, Ahmad saw, a number of small scars, traces on his waxy white skin of some disease, eradicated in the West, contracted by a child in Yemen. With thiese roughnesses was revealed something disagreeable about his violet lips, a sulky masculine set to them that had lurked unemphasized when they moved so rapidly, so seductively, in a recess of facial hair. The shaikh was not wearing his turban or his lacy white amdma; a receding hairline was bared.
Shrunken in Ahmad's eyes, he asked, "Your mother will not miss you and activate the police?"
"She has night duty this weekend. I left a note for her to see when she comes in, saying I am spending the night with a friend. She may suppose it is a girlfriend. She nags me on the subject, suggesting I should have one."