“That’s from my third duel,” she says, “see?” and guides Moustache’s hand (his forefinger, actually) along her face.
“Your what?” says Moustache, momentarily frozen into the attractive statue of a pleasant young man.
“My duel,” says Janet, “silly. Well, it’s not Sweden, not really. You’ve heard of me; I was on the television. I’m the emissary from Whileaway.”
“My God,” he says.
“Ssh, don’t tell anyone.” (She’s very pleased with herself. She chuckles.) “This line I got in my third duel; this one—it’s practically gone—in my second. Not bad, hey?”
“Are you sure you don’t mean fencing?” says Ginger Moustache.
“Hell, no,” says Janet impatiently; “I told you, duel.” And she draws her forefinger across her throat with a melodramatic jerk. This mad chick doesn’t seem so nice to Moustache any more. He swallows.
“What do you fight about—girls?”
“You are kidding me,” says Janet. “We fight about bad temper—what else? Temperamental incompatibility. Not that it’s so common as it used to be but if you can’t stand her and she can’t stand you, what’s to be done?”
“Sure,” says Ginger Moustache. “Well, goodbye.” Janet became suddenly repentant.
“That—well, I suppose that’s rather savage, isn’t it?” she says. “I beg pardon. You will think badly of us. Understand, I have put all that behind me now; I am an adult; I have a family. We hope to be friends, yes?” And she looks down at him solemnly, a little timidly, ready to be rebuked. But he hasn’t the heart to do it.
“You’re a great chick,” says he. “Some day we’ll get together. Don’t duel with me, though.”
She looks surprised. “Huh?”
“Yeah, you’ll tell me all about yourself,” Ginger Moustache goes on. He smiles and broods. “You can meet the kids.”
“I have a daughter,” says Janet. “Baby brat Yuriko.” He smiles.
“We got homemade wine. Vegetable garden. Sara puts things up. Great place.” (He’s into his duffle coat by now after searching in the hall closet.) “Tell me, what do you do? I mean for a living?”
“Whileaway is not here-and-now,” Janet begins; “You might not understand. I settle family quarrels; I look after people; it’s—”
“Social work?” asks Ginger Moustache, extending to us his fine, shapely, tanned, uncalloused hand, an intellectual’s hand, but I have hardened my heart and I peep out from behind Janet Evason with the divine relief of my female irony and my female teeth:
“She’s a cop. She puts people in jail.”
Ginger Moustache is alarmed, knows he’s alarmed, laughs at himself, shakes his head. How wide is the gap between cultures! But we grok. We shake hands. He goes off into the party to fetch Domicissa, whom he pulls by the wrist (she silently protesting) to the hall closet. “Get on your Goddamn coat, will you!” I heard only whispers, vehement and angry, then Domicissa blowing her nose.
“So long, hey! Hey, so long!” cried he.
His wife’s in Vermont; Domicissa isn’t his wife.
Janet had just asked me to explicate the marriage system of North America.
Saccharissa has just said, pouting, “Po’ little me! I sho’ly needs to be liberated!”
Aphrodissa was sitting in someone’s lap, her left eyelash half off. Janet was rather at a loss. Mustn’t judge. Shut one eye. Peek. Busy, busy couple, kissing and grabbing. Janet backed off slowly to the other side of the room and there we met the lean academic with the glasses; he’s all sharp, nervous and sharp. He gave her a drink and she drank it.
“So you do like it!” he said provokingly.
“I would suhtinly like,” said Saccharissa with great energy, “to see all those women athletes from the Olympics compete with all those men athletes; I don’t imagine any of these women athletes could even come neah the men.”
“But American women are so unusual,” said the man from Leeds. “Your conquering energy, dear lady, all this world-wide American efficiency! What do you dear ladies use it for?”
“Why, to conquer the men!” cried Saccharissa, braying.
“In mah baby brain,” said Janet, imitating quite accurately, “a suhtin conviction is beginnin’ to fo’m.”
“The conviction that somebody is being insulted?” said Sharp Glasses. He didn’t say that, actually.
“Let’s go,” said Janet. I know it’s the wrong party, but where are you going to find the right party?
“Oh, you don’t want to go!” said Sharp Glasses energetically. Jerky, too, they’re always so jerky.
“But I do,” said Janet.
“Of course you don’t,” he said; “You’re just beginning to enjoy yourself. The party’s warming up. Here,” (pushing us down on the couch) “let me get you another.”
You’re in a strange place, Janet. Be civil.
He came back with another and she drank it. Uh-oh. We made trivial conversation until she recovered. He leaned forward confidentially. “What do you think of the new feminism, eh?”
“What is—” (she tried again) “What is—my English is not so good. Could you explain?”
“Well, what do you think of women? Do you think women can compete with men?”
“I don’t know any men.” She’s beginning to get mad.
“Ha ha!” said Sharp Glasses. “Ha ha ha! Ha ha!” (He laughed just like that, in sharp little bursts.) “My name’s Ewing. What’s yours?”
“Janet.”
“Well, Janet, I’ll tell you what I think of the new feminism. I think it’s a mistake. A very bad mistake.”
“Oh,” said Janet flatly. I kicked her, I kicked her, I kicked her.
“I haven’t got anything against women’s intelligence,” said Ewing. “Some of my colleagues are women. It’s not women’s intelligence. It’s women’s psychology. Eh?”
He’s being good-humored the only way he knows how. Don’t hit him.
“What you’ve got to remember,” said Ewing, energetically shredding a small napkin, “is that most women are liberated right now. They like what they’re doing. They do it because they like it.”
Don’t, Janet.
“Not only that, you gals are going about it the wrong way.”
You’re in someone else’s house. Be polite.
“You can’t challenge men in their own fields,” he said. “Now nobody can be more in favor of women getting their rights than I am. Do you want to sit down? Let’s. As I said, I’m all in favor of it. Adds a decorative touch to the office, eh? Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Unequal pay is a disgrace. But you’ve got to remember, Janet, that women have certain physical limitations.”
(here he took off his glasses, wiped them with a little serrated square of blue cotton, and put them back on) “and you have to work within your physical limitations.
“For example,” he went on, mistaking her silence for wisdom while Ludicrissa muttered, “How true! How true!” somewhere in the background about something or other, “you have to take into account that there are more than two thousand rapes in New York City alone in every particular year. I’m not saying of course that that’s a good thing, but you have to take it into account. Men are physically stronger than women, you know.”
(Picture me on the back of the couch, clinging to her hair like a homuncula, battering her on the top of the head until she doesn’t dare to open her mouth.)
“Of course, Janet,” he went on, “you’re not one of those—uh—extremists. Those extremists don’t take these things into account, do they? Of course not! Mind you, I’m not defending unequal pay but we have to take these things into account. Don’t we? By the way, I make twenty thousand a year. Ha! Ha ha ha!” And off he went into another fit.