Nothing and nobody, maybe. Maybe he just eats here, like her.
Speaking of which. She runs a finger down the menu—she’s so hungry she could eat a horse, though she knows better than to use such an expression in front of Charis. What she settles on is the Thick-cut Gourmet Toasted Cheese Sandwich, on Herb and Caraway Seed Bread, with Polish Pickle. Solid peasant food, or an imitation of it. The Poles should have it so good, right now they’re probably exporting all their pickles for hard currency. She gives her order to the tousle-haired waitress—could this be the attraction, for Larry? a serving wench?—and settles down to pick Tony’s brain on the subject of the Middle East. Whenever something major happens there, the business world ripples.
Tony is so satisfying too, because however pessimistic Roz may be about current affairs, Tony is worse. She makes Roz feel like a naive young bubblebrain, such a refreshing change! Over the years they have deplored the US. presidency, shaken their heads while the Tories shredded the country, cast dire auguries from their analysis of Margaret Thatcher’s hairdo, a militaristic sheet-iron coiffure if ever there was one, said Tony. When the Wall fell, Tony predicted waves of outgoing East Bloc iiiiamigrants, and rising resentment of them in the West, and Roz said, Oh surely not, because the thought of immigrants being resented bothers her a lot. None is too many, is what some Canadian government pooh-bah said about the Jews, during the war.
But things are getting more confusing: for instance, how many immigrants can you fit in? How many of them can you handle, realistically, and who is them, and where do you draw the line? The mere fact that Roz is thinking this way shows the extent of the problem, because Roz knows very well what it’s like to be them. By now, however, she is us. It makes a difference. She hates to be dog-in-the-manger, but she has to admit that Tony has been—however discouragingly—right on the money. Roz admires that. If only Tony would turn her predictive abilities to something more lucrative, like the stock market.
Tony’s always so cool about everything, though. So matterof-fact. What did you expect? she asks, With her round surprisedeyes. Her surprise is for other people’s hopefulness, their innocence, their mushy desire that everything will somehow turn out for the best.
Meanwhile, Charis, who doesn’t believe in deaths, only in transitions, gets upset at the thought of all the riots and wars and famines Tony goes on about, because so many people will be killed. It isn’t the deaths themselves, she tells them—it’s the nature of the deaths. They aren’t good deaths, they are violent and cruel, they are incomplete and damaged, and the evil effects will linger on like a sort of spiritual pollution for years and years. It’s contaminating merely to think about this stuff, according to Charis.
“It’s already been decided,” says Tony. “It was decided as soon as Saddam crossed that border. Like the Rubicon:”
The Rubicon, the Rubicon. Roz knows she’s heard that word before. A river; somebody crossed it. Tony has a whole list of rivers that people crossed, with world-changing results, at some time or another. The Delaware, that was Washington. The Germanic tribes crossing the Rhine and overthrowing the Roman Empire. But the Rubicon? Well, how stupid of Roz! Julius Caesar, for a full ten points!
Then it comes to Roz in a flash of light—what a great lipstick name! A great series of names, names of rivers that have been crossed, crossed fatefully; a mix of the forbidden, and of courage, of daring, a dash of karma. Rubicon, a bright hollyberry. Jordan, a rich grape-tinged red. Delaware, a cerise with a hint of blue—though perhaps the word itself is too prissy. Saint Lawrence—a fire-and-ice hot pink—no, no, out of the question, saints won’t do. Ganges, a blazing orange. Zambezi, a succulent maroon. Volga, that eerie purple that was the only shade of lipstick those poor deprived Russian women could lay their hands on, for decades—but Roz can see a future for it now, it will become avant-retro, a collector’s item like the statues of Staliri:
Roz carries on with the conversation, but in her head she’s furiously planning. She can see the shots of the models, how she wants them to look: seductive, naturally, but challenging too, a sort of meet-your-destiny stare. What was it Napoleon crossed? Only the Alps, no memorable rivers, worse luck. Maybe a few snippets from historical paintings in the background, someone waving a gusry, shredded flag, on a hill—it’s always a hill, never for instance a swamp—with smoke and flames boiling around. Yes! It’s right! This will go like hotcakes! And there’s one final shade needed, to complete the palette: a sultry brown, with a smouldering, roiling undernote. What’s the right river for that?
Styx. It couldn’t be anything else.
It’s at this moment that Roz catches the look on Tony’s face. It isn’t fear, exactly: it’s an intentness, a focusing, a silent growl. If Tony had hackles they’d be raised, if she had fangs they’d be bared. This expression is so unlike the normal Tony that it scares Roz to bits.
“Tony, what’s wrong?” she says.
“Turn your head slowly,” says Tony. “Don’t scream.” Oh shit. It’s her. In the flesh.
Roz has no doubt, not a moment of it. If anyone can come back from the dead, if anyone would be determined to do it, it’s Zenia. And she’s back, all right. She’s back in town, like the guy in the black hat in Western movies. The way she’s striding through the room proclaims her sense of re-entry, of staking out the territory: a tiny contemptuous upcurved smirk, a conscious pelvic swagger, as if she’s got two pearl-handled revolvers slung on her hips and is just waiting for an excuse to use them. Her perfume trails behind her like the smoke from an insolent cigar. While the three of them sit huddled at their table, cowards all, pretending not to notice and avoiding eye contact and acting like the Main Street folks who dive for cover behind the drygoods counter, keeping out of the line of fire.
Roz reaches down for her purse, sneaking a peek at Zenia over her lowered shoulder, taking her measure, as Zenia undulates into a chair. Zenia is still magnificent. Though Roz knows how much of her is manufactured, it makes no difference. When you alter yourself, the alterations become the truth: who knows that better than Roz, whose hair tints vary monthly? Such things are not illusions, they are transformations. Zenia is no longer a small-titted person with two implants, she’s a bigbreasted knockout: The same goes for the nose job, and if
Zenia’s hair is turning grey it’s invisible, she must have a topnotch colourist. You are what they see. Like a renovated building, Zenia is no longer the original, she’s the end result.
Still, Roz can picture the stitch marks, the needle tracks, where the Frankenstein doctors have been at work. She knows the fault lines where Zenia might crack open. She would like to be able to say a magic word—Shazam!—that would cause time to run backwards, make the caps on Zenia’s teeth pop off to reveal the dead stumps underneath, melt her ceramic glaze, whiten her hair, shrivel her amino-acid-fed estrogen-replacement skin, pop her breasts open like grapes so that their silicone bulges would whiz across the room and splat against the wall.
What would Zenia be then? Human, like everyone else. It would do her good. Or rather it would do Roz good, because it would even the odds. As it is, Roz is going to war armed only with a basketful of nasty adjectives, a handful of ineffectual pebbles. What exactly can she do, to Zenia? Not a heck of a lot, because there can’t be anything Zenia wants from her. Any more.