Dorcas has to stand on Ozark’s stilts to reach the top of the pyre.
“It is a substantial pyre,” thinks Dorcas. She heaves another bundle of newspapers. Difficult, heaving on stilts. More difficult than shamanism.
From her great height, Dorcas can see a large black cat with emerald eyes in the rubble of the Security Spray Complex. The cat bats a bird back and forth between its paws. It is a large bird, white and gold.
“Bertrand?” whispers Dorcas.
[:]
Ozark is discouraged. She thought she had borrowed a book about Magellan. Instead, she has borrowed one of the books of lost girls. She can’t include them in her inventory. What if they want to stay lost? Ozark flips through the pages. Does she read of Gudrid the Wanderer? Does she read of Queen Wanda the Drowned? The pages are blank.
The flannel backpack weighs on Ozark’s shoulders. She wanders along one street, then another street, then another street. They are all unmarked.
“Drifting streets,” thinks Ozark. She looks up at the pink arrow on the courthouse.
“But how can I be sure they’re on the right highway?” thinks Ozark. She stops at the corner. There is an overturned truck by the Greece Trap. The long silver trailer has jackknifed and the contents have tumbled out, boxes and boxes of pies. Luckily, the pies are frozen solid. They have been shipped from Axel Heiberg, where many of the world’s frozen pies are stored.
“And popsicles,” thinks Ozark, “and Erdbeer Käsekuchen Eis.”
The truck driver hasn’t hit his head, but he pretends that he hit his head to hide his embarrassment. He sits in the sideways cab with his hands covering his face.
“My head,” says the truck driver. He peeks between his fingers. The passenger-side window was showing the pale blue sky. Now it is showing a seasoned-looking Vegas showgirl, gingery hair shot through with white. She wants to use the CB radio. The truck driver turns down the stereo. He is listening to an au-diobook called the Treasury of Irish Love Poems. Ozark knows quite a few of them. She wishes she had brought Dorcas’s cassette tape of Chevrefoil. Or for that matter Equitan, Le Fresne, Bisclavret, Lanval, Les Deux Amants, Yonec, Laustic, Milun, Chaitivel, or Eliduc.
“Mr. 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, etc., etc., 10–22 73W12, 42N52. 10–20 73W12, 42N52. Bravo.”
Ozark drops the transmitter. Did she leave anything out?
“Would you like to come over for a party and a few Breton lais?” asks Ozark. In fact, the truck driver would like to very much. First, he has to pick up a few frozen pies.
[:]
At this very moment a pink caravan is pulling out from a rest stop in the Florida panhandle, roaring up the entrance ramp to the interstate highway. Is there enough room for the contortionists in the equipment trailer? There is. Did Mr. Fibonacci pack enough sugar cookies for the elephants? He did. And for the World’s Smallest Boy? No, it cannot be done. The World’s Smallest Boy is sprawled across the dashboard, eating a Lemon Lulu. He is no longer a boy. He is mini-Przewalski. He washes down the Lulu with a dropper of schnapps and lights his black cigar. The truck cab fills with smoke. The stereo is broken. Mr. Fibonacci turns up the CB radio. Truckers across the country are caroling.
Give a yell, give a cheer
for the girls who drink the beer
in the cellars of St. Catherine’s school.
We are brave, we are bold
for the liquor we can hold
in the cellars of St. Catherine’s school.
For it’s run, run, run!
I think I hear a nun!
So grab all your liquor up and run!
If a nun should appear, yell “Sister, have a beer!”
In the cellars of St. Catherine’s school.
The World’s Smallest Boy sings along. Of course, he has a fine bass voice. The truck doubles in speed. The kinetic energy increases by a factor of four.
X
In the kitchen, Mrs. Borage has had a shock.
“Haloed martyrs,” shouts Mrs. Borage.
“No,” she sighs. “It is Fiona’s head. She is standing in front of my commemorative plate. Silly of me.”
[:]
Dorcas puts the last scoop of ice cream in her root beer float. She opens the cupboard.
“Where are the straws?” asks Dorcas.
Does Dorcas think the pinwheels grew overnight? Dorcas stares out at the backyard. Everywhere, pinwheels. There are even pinwheels on the pyre. Some of the wheels are made of paper, but some of the wheels are made of plastic. There are wheels of aluminum foil, and there are also wheels of lettuce and maple leaves and orange peels.
Dorcas imagines that it looks something like Holland.
[:]
Mrs. Borage is sitting on the kitchen floor.
“It was a good rocking chair while it lasted,” says Mrs. Bor age. She picks up her scissors. A blade drops. She holds the remaining scissor. What will she do with a scissor? Mrs. Borage would rather have a trouser than a scissor. At least with a trouser you have one warm leg, which can support a good left profile. Mrs. Borage has a good left profile. Maybe the best. She sighs. She likes to snip the Helsinki Winki but it doesn’t do to get too attached to methodology.
“The Russians might upset the Finns at the semifinals,” says Mrs. Borage, tearing. “Which could have a ripple effect in the world of hockey. Generally, I feel isolated from the vicissitudes of nations and their sports teams, but look at the way these men hold each other after the penalty shot.”
Dorcas looks.
“They are stroking each other’s carapaces,” says Mrs. Borage. “What does it trigger in you, Dorcas?”
Dorcas scratches her neck.
“The phylogenetic memory of your days as an invertebrate?” asks Mrs. Borage.
“Yes, that’s it,” says Dorcas. “Exactly.”
“Isolation is an illusion,” says Mrs. Borage. “The Russians are an illusion. The Finnish National Hockey team is an illusion. A beautiful illusion,” sighs Mrs. Borage. She rips a winger, something written beneath his left skate, agglutinative. What should she call him, this wing man?
“Gluteus Maximus!” says Mrs. Borage. It sounds so Roman. Rome is an illusion. Centurions are illusions. There is no Impe-rium.
“Right now I feel real,” says Mrs. Borage. “But who knows? Tomorrow I might feel completely different.”
[:]
Everyone is anxious before a party.
“We should sleep,” says Agnes. She is standing over the toaster. Just a few more pieces of toast. She looks out the window. She sees a horned figure creeping through the tree line. Robin o’ the Wood! He’s come early! He’s wearing a fringed leather jacket and chaps and carrying an armful of soup cans.
“He must be cleaning the forest,” thinks Agnes. She feels ashamed. The forests in the United States are so filthy.
“Has Ozark gone to sleep?” asks Agnes. “Where is Fiona? Where is Dorcas?” Two more pieces of toast. Maybe four.
Mrs. Borage is drawing a bath. The steam fills the kitchen.
“You have nullified my toasting,” says Agnes.
“It is an election year,” says Mrs. Borage. “But only according to the Julian calendar.”
It is wonderful to relax in the bathtub, talking politics. Mrs. Borage has put her wig on the shelf in the oven. Her real hair is very long and dark, with red highlights and orange highlights and yellow highlights, and green and blue and purple highlights, like a midnight rainbow.
Agnes is anti-capitalist. Of course she is. She is an heiress. Mrs. Borage likes capitalism.
“Capitalism is the religion of illusion,” says Mrs. Borage. “When you turn 100, you start looking for religion.”
[:]
“Which reminds me, where is my credit card?” asks Agnes. “I should pay our back taxes.”
“I know where it is,” says Fiona. She runs to check the por table television on the mantel. The credit card is missing. Instead of a credit card, there is a torn piece of green paper glued in the upper left-hand corner of the screen: