Mach never has to worry about facing the unfamiliar, about encountering an unpleasant word or gesture, about being caught short in the middle of the desert. He is more protected than a collar-wearing priest in a world full of devout Catholics. He is more protected than East Germany with its layers of chain link fences and lookout towers, its patrolling soldiers with guard dogs, its mined fields.
Why then is he so rigid, so anxious? Why does he look at every man who approaches him as if the man were a potential enemy? Why does he seem never to relax, to enjoy, to have pleasure? Why does he sip his martini carefully, and stop at two?
Dolores watches him. Maybe he thinks everybody is talking about him, that everybody knows about the deal he made for Blanchard Oil with I. G. Farben back in the thirties, a deal that kept Germany going strong all during the war that killed both German folk and American folk and lots of other folk besides, but that left Farben and Blanchard absolute victors when the war was over, so loaded with money they didn’t know where to hide it. But the truth is, everybody knows about it, or has chosen not to know, or has chosen to forget. And in the circles that surround Mach, he is admired for it. He doesn’t need to worry about that.
Wherever Mach is, the circle around him is quiet, waiting for the great man to speak; it is still, like the eye of a hurricane. But Mach says little. He listens, selectively. Only to men.
And there, standing a little behind Victor, is Edith. Dolores sees her too. Talking to Bitlow, Victor has forgotten to introduce her, and Bitlow too (he learns quickly) has forgotten to introduce his wife. The two women stand beside, a little behind, their men. They are both perfectly groomed in neat but not gaudy and certainly not sexy cocktail dresses. Their hair is styled and blonded identically. Both are drinking something a little sweet, in a pretty glass with a stem. They glance at each other and venture a formal half-smile. They glance at the men and pretend great interest in the serious and important conversation. They know it is serious and important because their husbands have told them so. They gaze upward—for these men are invariably taller than their women—at their men, and then across at each other. Their smiles say that they understand how important and intelligent and powerful their men are and that they are grateful, oh, so grateful, to have such men. They try to laugh at what they think are jokes (sometimes inappropriately), but in fact they are not at all sure what this conversation is about. They smile uncertainly at each other. Bitlow’s wife, Edna, does know the name of Victor Morrissey, and is a little intimidated by his wife. Edith knows this and enjoys it.
The men are talking about Oil. And the Alaska Pipeline. The women’s heads bob energetically. They may not know much, but they know the Alaska Pipeline is a Good Thing and Should Be Permitted to Proceed. For the Good of the Country. Otherwise there will be an Energy Crisis. Their husbands have mentioned this in Dire Tones, Often.
The women do not know that such crises can be engineered, that, in fact, one is being engineered under their very eyes. No, that’s silly. Their husbands? Who just two weeks ago Saturday went out on the lawn and played Frisbee with the kids? Never!
The conversation moves into more opaque areas—shipping, markets, prices. The women’s eyes glaze over, although they keep smiling and nodding their heads as if they understood everything. They are not embarrassed at not understanding what is being said. They know they are not supposed to understand what is being said. They know exactly why they are there, standing in the room beside their taller husbands. They are Respectability. They are the living, walking, talking, laughing proof that their husbands are good Family Men, no matter what hanky-panky they may occasionally indulge in, good Family Men who support The American Way of Life. They are not pansies or queers, these men, they are reliable, not bohemians or artists or hippies or anything else subversive of The American Way of Life. Anyone looking at these women can tell that they sleep only in their husbands’ beds, and not especially happily there, since they know that sexuality is the work of the devil, and that Children and the Home and the Family are the work of God.
Even if they don’t believe in God, they know that. But most of them do not know whether or not they believe in God, because that is a dangerous subject, better not thought about.
Knowing why they are there, they are extremely careful. They know they have no power to improve things, to make an impression or advance a deal, but utter utter power to destroy their husbands, to say the wrong thing, or get angry and throw a drink, or curse out loud, or frown at the wrong woman, or … oh, the list is endless! of the harm they are capable of inflicting. So they are very careful. They don’t dare move, they don’t know how things are progressing in the conversation, or what is going to happen next.
Suzanne Hein and Dolores are watching together.
What happens next is that Victor puts his arm up and lays his hand lightly on Bitlow’s shoulder, easily, seemingly in comradeship. Edna Bitlow’s eyes glow. Is it greed or ambition or relief that tonight her husband will be in a good mood, will be expansive and perhaps even kind, after his success? Perhaps he will even approve her, Edna, for her excellent behavior? Or is it that she is looking at Edith Morrissey, who is calm and cool and blond and assured and who does not have a single ripple of flesh along the lines of her svelte body, and imagining that someday she, Edna Bitlow, will be in the position of Edith Morrissey, and will look like her too?
Victor turns Bitlow’s body without force, like a man leading a woman in a dance, with a light touch, fingers on a waist, hand on hand. What he is doing is turning Bitlow to face the great man, and Bitlow gasps inwardly, his heart sends gushes to his brain, his brain sends gushes of gratitude to his heart, gratitude towards Victor Morrissey, who is doing this for him. And there he is, the great man, Mach himself, peering at the two of them out of his watery blue-yellow slits. The three men are talking together, Victor is introducing Bitlow (Bitlow!) to the great Mach (Mach!) and their backs are to the women. (Didja see that, Edna? Me, Billy Bitlow from Nohank, Arkansas, talking to him, Mach!) Edith moves a little closer to the men, she pushes herself against Victor just slightly, and smiles, fixedly, at Mach. She keeps smiling, looking directly at him, waiting for a moment of recognition, but she doesn’t get it. She has never gotten it, although she’s been introduced to Mach at least five times. She has mentioned this to Victor, who shrugs and says, Come on, Edith, he has important things on his mind, and who thinks, Good god, women and their petty concerns.
The women are totally cut out and are feeling a little humiliated, but they will never admit that to themselves or to each other. And in a way, they also feel liberated. That conversation left them only glazed in mind and body. They smile at each other more humanly now, and begin to talk. Such a lovely party, yes, and the weather so fine for this time of year, yes, they had taken a drive to Connecticut recently, Edna and her husband, and the foliage was really gorgeous! To see their son, yes, broad smile, pride coming up now, well, why not, to see their son who is a freshman at Yale. Yes.
Edna does not of course mention that the reason Billy was willing to take time off, was willing to drive so far, is that son has had a breakdown and is now in the Yale clinic, and they drove up to see if he needed to be driven back home to Washington. Her face shows it, trembling in tiny lines around the smile. Edith sees this or doesn’t see it. She knows the rules and would be shocked if Edna mentioned such a thing, shocked to the point of smiling and saying Ummm, and moving away and telling Victor later that she did not think the Bitlows were to be taken up.
But of course Victor already knows that and has no intention of doing it.
But Edna knows the rules too, and doesn’t mention it. Yes, the buffet was magnificent! Such huge shrimp! And the pineapple mousse! A really lovely party!
Yes, we drove to Connecticut to see Billy, Jr., just a freshman, you know, first time away from home and a little homesick. Isn’t that sweet? I think that’s sweet.
Edith thinks: No prep school? She knows the Bitlows are not to be taken up.
r />
Both women perceive, out of the corners of their eyes, a woman standing behind a pair of men, talking. Her body is slightly turned towards them. She glances at the men and nods and smiles graciously, you can see she is thinking that, thinking gracious, I am gracious. Only occasionally does she glance over at Edith and Edna. And Edith and Edna recognize her moves, and inch a bit closer to her. At an appropriate moment, when the distance between them is just right, Edith turns to the new woman and smiles (she’s the superior here, after all, the one in charge) and says hello, I’m Edith Morrissey. And the woman’s face brightens, she knows the name Morrissey, and reaches out and puts her hand lightly, very lightly, very briefly on Edith’s arm, and Edith bristles, but then the woman says, Oh, I’m happy to meet you, I’m Eleanor Howe, my husband’s with EGC. And Edith knows that name, and so, awed, does Edna, and the reaction could be measured by an instrument that was sensitive to the vibrations and intensity of air, and in moments there is gay laughter in that little group, laughter betraying joy and gratification in the company, such exalted company! Yes, the three ladies stand in their neat but not gaudy cocktail dresses, one dark blue, one light blue, one beige, and their hairdos, two blond (one dyed) and one brunette, and hold their pretty glasses with something sweet in them, and smile and talk and praise, yes they praise the food, the drink, the men, the corporations, the view, the windows, the decor, the paintings, the weather, the music, the company, the woods and gardens be yond, the beauty of the entire created world! Hallelujah!
Party over, Victor drives home abstracted but with a lively glint in his eye. Edith glances at him, decides to talk, tells him about Edna Bitlow and her untakeable-up-ness, Eleanor Howe and her eminent takeable-up-ness, trying to please him with her perception, her understanding of the rules. He barely listens, says Umm, and if he catches any of what she says, he thinks how petty women are.
He’s right. The women imitate on a petty scale what the men do on a grand scale. Or at least, what the men think is a grand scale. (Oh, Mach!) Edith’s mouth twitches, because something like this comes into her mind, but she can’t bring herself to think it fully, much less say it. So she smiles and subsides and tries to think of something pleasant to wipe away the other and as they pull into their driveway she thinks how nice it is they have a circular driveway when everybody else on the block has only a straight one.
3
HOW CAN YOU LOVE a man like that? I ask you, how can you?
He’s not like that anymore. He’s suffered, he’s seen. Suffering makes a person more human.
Indeed. Does it occur to you that even Mach has probably suffered, that once upon a time he was four years old and had a round freckled face and eyes that looked straight at you? No doubt he did. No one escapes pain.
She hummed: The man I love belongs to somebody else. She rose. Not to Edith, no. To Mach and his machine. Victor’s machine too. Edith was in a wheelchair invented by Victor’s machine. How can you love a man like that?
Poor Anthony. Always wanted to belong to the machine, to feel he was part of it. Never quite made it. Why he hated me. But I loved what it was in him that would not allow him to become part of it. Always throwing a tantrum at the wrong time. Still, it’s failure for a man, not to belong to the machine.
The machine always wins. When World War III is over and the world is a huge pile of steaming rubble and the people are all dead, there, on the horizon, there, with its chimneys still smoking, will rise I. G. Farben and the robots it invented to save the cost and unpredictable behavior of human labor. Computer-controlled robots jerk across the floor pushing ingots into ovens with long shovels. The robots don’t know everybody’s dead. Even Mach’s or Blanchard’s Caribbean island is an ember now. Even Mach is an ash.
So are the rest of us.
Equal and opposite power, Victor says. How?
Still, he’s right. We’re all part of it, there’s no purity, only milk and butter can be pure, not people. What’s pure? One hundred percent pure TNT, napalm, margarine.
Who’s pure? The farmer, injecting his chickens to make them grow faster, giving them electric shock to make the egg happen? The clerk, stamping in quintuplicate forms to permit nerve gas to be transported across country in a rig? She, teaching in a college that owned stock in Blanchard Oil? She, whose books were published by Crosscutt, a company owned by a conglomerate that pushes sick white bread on America, that pushed nerve gas while it was legal, that still, in one of its subsidiaries, manufactures napalm?
Where can you go to get clean? Some little island in the South Pacific, white beaches, coral reefs, natives living by pulling taro from their front yards, shellfish from the coral, breadfruit and pineapple from the trees? Toothless by thirty, ignorant, yearning. For what? For a TV set, a washing machine, a refrigerator. Yes. And to make enough money to buy an occasional piece of cloth to cover your body, you have to work for one of Them, the Dutch traders, the Aussies, the New Zealanders, the Americans, the Germans, who trade, who wheel and deal, who complain as they sit in their air-conditioned offices about the lazy natives, as the thermometer outside registers 100 degrees and the humidity reaches 99 percent. The natives intelligently slouch from shadow to shadow in the midday sun, while on the beach a white-skinned visitor with no visible fat jogs on the beach, and later collapses of heat prostration.
Victor had spoken to her one day about right and wrong, explaining his frustration.
“The holding company was thinking about buying a strip-mining firm and I was supposed to look into it. I ordered a set of studies, from every possible point of view. The company wasn’t worried about the morality of strip mining, but they were worried about getting flak from the ecology freaks, and the increasing numbers of lawsuits being brought by citizens’ groups, people whose farms—they claimed—had been ruined by strip-mining operations. The company did not want to spend a lot of time and money in court.
“And I’m not going to say I was terribly concerned with the morality of it when I began either. It was a question of investment and risk versus possible profit: it was my job to analyze that, to evaluate it. But I got dragged into the morality of it, willy-nilly, because there’s no way not to.
“Well, I read the studies—they took months to complete—and I went down to Tennessee and West Virginia, out West to Colorado. I looked at what had been done, I even spoke to some of the farmers who were complaining. And there’s no question, none at all, that some of those mining operations left utter devastation behind them. Barren land, not a blade of grass to keep it from eroding at the next rainfall. Farms nearly buried in mud that had slid down from the mined slope. People’s wells full of mud, no water to drink. Unreplaceable plants and wildlife destroyed. Some of the flora in Appalachia is ancient, and exists nowhere else. I looked out at miles and miles of bleak sandy terrain, it looked like the moon. And at once-productive little farms, homes of independent self-reliant people, destroyed by the strip mines.
“I heard about fishy contracts and forceful takeovers by some of the mining companies, cheating the fanners who sold out, pressuring those who wouldn’t. The evidence seemed clear to me—although it wouldn’t easily hold up in a conservative court. I know how corporations work. There had been deceit and political power involved in getting them what they wanted.
“And then I looked at statistics about under-the-surface mining—the number of lives lost every year, the incidence of black lung and other diseases, the bad conditions in the mines—health wise and safety wise. And the cost of getting a ton of coal out of the earth.
“And then I looked at the political situation and the problems we are going to be having, increasingly, with foreign oil, and its cost, and the consequence of its cost to the American dollar. And what that meant to the average American, not even people like you who travel abroad, but average people, in terms of buying power. Knowing that if money gets tight it will be human programs, the social programs you support, that will be cut back, not the budget for the military.
; “And when I was all through, I tossed all that out and made my recommendation on a basis purely of possible risk, possible profit, possible loss. There was no way to do it otherwise.”
“But those were your priorities in the first place.”
“And in the last place.”
She grimaced.
“Some people say we should have no growth. They say a little poverty is better than destroying the earth. But a notch in the belt for those people is the loss of sustenance for people lower on the economic scale than they are. They don’t think about that. They think poverty is having to drink jug wine. Even those who live really simply don’t know what poverty is because they’ve adopted it. My father’s father lived in a shack with five sisters and brothers and his mother. Every morning the mother woke up the three oldest kids—my grandfather and two sisters—and sent them out with sacks. They lived near the coal mines, and they’d go to the slag heaps and fish through them finding tiny bits of coal that had escaped the sorter. They knew better than to go home without a full sack. They’d get home hours later, black and ashy from head to foot, and sometimes she’d smack them anyway, their mother. She was so desperate, so frantic….
“She used the coal the kids found to heat the shack. She and the next oldest children would spend the morning in the woods, finding edible plants, something to eat. The littler one tagged behind. One of them died from eating a poisonous mushroom. I don’t imagine she wept too long. One less to feed.
“All of the children except my grandfather grew up to be idiots. Stupid benighted bigoted hateful people. Poverty is not good for the soul or the body or the mind. My grandfather ran away from home, he found shoes somehow, he got a job in a factory, he got someone to teach him to read. He drove, he was a bit of a bastard, I guess, at least to his children. But he became a storekeeper, he married a woman who had a store, and they ran it together and they fed themselves and their children.