Now Paperman could see and feel the room trembling. A metal thing fell to the floor somewhere with a clang, and the glass chandelier tinkled wildly.
"How bad do they get?" said the senator, raising his voice above the swelling sound and holding the arm of the couch, but looking unruffled.
Tom Tilson replied, "Not bad here, usually. Nothing like the South Pacific."
Collins said, "I don't know, this one's going on a long time."
A harder tremor came, and a loud vibrating rumble. Paperman saw a pink-and-gold china vase topple, roll off a table, and break in pieces.
The jerking of his chair was nauseating, and it took will power not to get up and run outside. All at once Collins dived under a table near his chair, shouting over the harsh scary noise, "Better take cover, Iris! A doorway is good!"
The sound lessened and stopped; so did the unpleasant motion.
"It's over," Iris said, in the moment of total quiet that followed.
"I timed that one," Tilson said. "Fourteen seconds."
A hubbub arose beyond the closed doors. The lawyer came out from under the table, dusting his knees. "Safety first," he said.
"That stirred up the party, Senator," Sanders said. "I'm afraid we'll have to join them."
"Fun, wasn't it?" the senator said to Iris. "I once was in a real bad one in Hawaii. Some houses fell down. See you later." He went out with the governor and Collins, who said that quakes frightened his wife, and he'd better find her.
Tom Tilson leaned on his stick to get himself out of his chair. "That's the other thing about the tropics, Paperman. The Temperate Zone is a fake, you know. Go to the arctic or the tropics if you want to find out what kind of planet the Lord has put you on. It can be damned inhospitable."
Paperman said in a shakier voice than he intended, "This island is still the most beautiful place I've ever seen."
"Nobody says it isn't pretty," said Tilson. "I said it was inhospitable. It's also unpredictable. You think you're braced for the very worst that can happen, but sooner or later the island throws a total surprise at you. I've seen it happen too often, Paperman, and I'm just telling you."
"Well, I'm not blowing," said Paperman, "come earthquakes, hurricanes, or anything else that Kinja can produce."
Tilson looked at him through almost closed eyes, his red withered face tilted far back, his stringy chin thrust out. "Well, all right. I'm a hermit. Mrs. Tilson and I give one party every year, at Christmas time. Two hundred guests, champagne, caviar, chateaubriands at midnight for everybody. My house is too small for that. I've been giving it at the Francis Drake for years. Can you handle it at Gull Reef? I pay twenty-five bucks a head, that's five thousand dollars. I expect the very best of everything, and I'm a fearful bastard to deal with."
"I'm willing to try it," said Paperman, with a startled glance at Iris.
"You've got it," said Tilson. He hobbled to the door, and turned. "These tremors seldom come one at a time. You might get shaken up once or twice more this week. A real big one can produce a tidal wave. That might wash out all your problems. Check your flood insurance."
Iris said as soon as he left, "Norman, if you do the Tilson party right, you're in. It's the event of the island. I want another drink fast, and no arguments. Earthquakes are special. One more for the earthquake."
Paperman said uneasily, following her down the mirrored hall, "The bar's probably closed by now."
"In that case," Iris said, "there's always His Excellency's private stock."
The guests thronging through the state rooms were still laughing and exclaiming over the downpour and the quake. Many of them milled around a buffet table in the largest room, where Governor Sanders stood in an arch of the French windows, arms folded, gloomily looking out at the rain. Iris made straight for him. "Where's the bar tonight, Governor? Why not in the usual corner?"
"They closed it outside when the rain came, Iris. It was sort of late. Have something to eat."
"No thank you. I guess my credit with Terence is still good for a drink." She pushed away through the crowd.
"How many has she had?" said Sanders to Paperman.
"Two."
The governor made a wry face. "Iris shouldn't have more."
"So she told me."
Norman caught up with her in a dark narrow hallway, between walls hung with photographs, swords, and guns. "Where to now?"
"The pantry. Terence is my pal."
"Iris, I'm hungry. Let's get another drink when we have dinner. Where shall we go?"
She glowered at him. "Lay off. I'm perfectly fine, and I mean to have another drink free of charge on this f----government before I leave."
Paperman blinked at the foul word. She laughed at him and turned away. He caught her arm. "Let go of me, Norman!"
"Iris, I'm leaving now. You can stay or you can come with me, but I'm going."
She smiled, her eyes widening in a bright vicious look. "Run along, Normy, and good riddance."
Paperman had nothing to go on except Iris's own instructions to him. "Okay, so long." He walked down the hallway without looking back, into the center hall and out through the back entrance to the parking space. Rain was falling, but not heavily. He dashed to the Land Rover, started it up, and as he backed and turned around he saw her at the head of the stairway, waving. He stopped.
"You really were going to do it, weren't you?" she said, clambering into the machine. "You really were going to leave me at that disgusting brawl."
"Order from the boss," he said.
She switched her skirt angrily around her thighs. "Well, it's no more than I should have expected from a Jew. I've never known a Jew who had any manners."
"Where would you like to have dinner?"
"I'm not hungry. The food stinks everywhere on this f----island. It's best at the Reef but I've had my bellyful of your stupid problems there, do you mind? If we eat in the patio of the Francis Drake, you can see your f----place go up in flames, or whatever's going to happen next.
There's bound to be something."
"Francis Drake." He started the Rover down the road in its snorting jerky way.
"Why in the name of your God of Moses don't you get a car," she said, "instead of this epileptic fit on wheels?"
Paperman looked straight ahead and said nothing. During the next ten minutes, as they drove through the slanting rain, Iris kept up an incoherent tirade against Jews, in a strident voice, her arms crossed, her dilated eyes fixed on him, unpleasant smiles writhing her mouth. At last, hoping to turn her off, Paperman said, "What makes you think I'm a Jew? I'm on your side. I think the Jews are taking over America, and it's a damn shame, because they're so feeble and incompetent."
"Very funny, but I happen to be serious. I can't stand Jews, I never was involved with one that I wasn't sorry afterward, and I speak with authority because Herb Tramm was one. You know, all this liberal talk is the bunk. Nobody can stand Jews. Even colored people can't stand them. You watch, people are going to stop coming to Gull Reef just because a Jew's got it."
"Okay, Iris, please shut up," said Paperman with a yawn.
"Don't tell me to shut up, you weak effeminate Jew. Scared to death by a few ants. I can probably fight you and beat you."
She said nothing more until they were seated in the patio of the Francis Drake under a striped canvas awning, having their first glass of wine with the shrimps. She drained the glass in a gulp, and then looked at him with an abashed grin, her eyes sad and friendly. "Sorry."
"Okay."
"Why didn't you throw me out of the car?"
"Well, as you pointed out, you can probably fight me. And anyway, a peeved woman is nothing new to me. I've logged about a hundred thousand hours, and I hold an instructor's license."
Iris laughed. "Henny can't be that bad. She can't be."
"Henny doesn't go on about the Jews, of course. And I must say she usually gets more provocation."
"Well, if it's any comfort to you, you ain't seen nuthin'. I hope you never do see me when I'm bad."
They ate in silence for a while.
"It's not my business, Iris," he said, "but since the stuff is rough on you, how about A.A.?"
Iris gnawed her lip, looking across the water at the lights of the Reef, misty in the rain. "No good. A.A. backs up to a religious idea, Norm. That lets me out. If I actually became convinced there was an intelligent God watching my antics, I'd probably cut my throat. Just to get back my privacy. It's an unbearable thought." She drank more wine. "My abiding comfort, honey, is that I know I mean no more to the universe than one of those dead ants in your wet Kleenex."
The food at the Francis Drake was not good-the meat tough and dry, the vegetables overcooked, the layer cake greasy. Paperman remarked on this, and Iris told him that he was fortunate in his cook, Sheila; the Reef offered the only tolerable food on the island. When they were having coffee, Iris patted a napkin to her mouth, and tossed it on the table. "Look, I've got to say this, and then let's forget it. I don't like anybody much, myself included, but I have a partiality for Jews, if anything-
Maybe you've noticed that. When I get ugly I say or do the worst possible thing. But I skirt an edge. If I really know I can't get away with it, I usually don't say it. I thought you'd put up with me, and you did. Why didn't you get angry?"
"Good question," said Norman, and he thought for a moment. "I'll tell you a story. Way back when I was working for Loyalist Spain, before I met Henny, there was this Vermont girl in the crowd, very radical and very Gentile, which to me at that time was a tough combination to beat. She was also not bad looking, though sort of loose-boned and rangy, and with a wide mouth. Anyway this thing got hot and heavy in a week or so. She was resisting a bit to prolong the enjoyment. It was all sharply delicious, the way everything was then. Well, late one night after going to a show, we were having coffee and cake in the automat on Fifty-seventh Street. I was just talking at random, and I said, This afternoon I was to a meeting at Joe's house,' something like that. She suddenly turned on me. 'Norman, please don't EVER say was to again. You always do. It's a New York expression, and a Jewish one at that.' I went on talking and kidding and finally took her home. I never saw her again. What she said didn't amount to much. But you see, she meant it." Iris nodded, looking down at her clasped hands. "How long has it been pouring now?" Norman said, glancing up at the awning, which sagged under the beating rain. "Two straight hours?"
"At least," said Iris. "You're not going to have to buy any more water or chase the Guadeloupe barge for a while. Not if this keeps up."
He said, "I'm trying to decide whether to cross over in this mess and see if the quake did anything to Paperman's Fancy, or just let it go hang."
Iris laughed. "Paperman's Fancy is good. Let it go hang. The quake did nothing, I assure you. Take me to the movie."
5
The narrow, dingy little marquee on upper Prince of Wales Street read Teen-Age Corpse Eaters, but Iris assured Norman that that was the big weekend attraction, the only title the manager ever bothered to put up on the marquee. "The weekend is always a horror thing, or some ancient Western," she said, "or one of those Italian jobs, with thousands of Romans hacking up thousands of Christians, and raping squadrons of naked slave girls. The Kinjans like that. Tonight's an old Cary Grant."
"How did we rate the passes?" Norman said as they walked into the chilled, grimy green hall full of rows of splintery wooden seats. The little Puerto Rican manager in the lobby had waved them past the ticket taker with a bow and a sad smile.
"Oh, they know me. In my decline I did a few horror movies. The Daughter of Dracula is still a great favorite in Kinja. They keep reviving it."
"Really? I missed that."
"Oh, it's a honey. I'm a playful lovely girl in an old castle in the Dolomites, see?" Iris said. "Just the prettiest, sweetest young thing. Well, in due time I turn into a big bat before your eyes, and I proceed to drink the blood of a horse-what are you giggling at? It's God's truth. That's the big scene. A cheer always goes up here when the horse collapses, all pumped dry."
"You're making up every word of this," Norman said, laughing hard despite the way the slats of the wooden seat were pinching him.
"I wish I were. I'd give anything if I could buy up that negative. A stag movie is nothing in comparison. It's a favorite on TV back home, too. My silly face, the way I looked nearly twenty years ago, all fixed up with fangs and bat ears, and dripping horse blood. That's how a new generation of Americans knows me. I may have some trouble making a comeback as Candida."
The movie began after about a half hour or so of short films extolling beers, deodorants, cigarettes, whiskeys, and hair dyes. The film kept going out of focus at odd times, and turning into a sliding gray smear for a minute or two; the air-conditioning blew on Norm like a strong winter wind; the wooden seat hurt his rear abominably; but even apart from these distractions, he found the film hard to follow. It was a suspense movie, with some humor, a dramatic death, and two or three fairly passionate love scenes. During the death, the Kinjans roared with laughter. They sat respectfully silent through the comedy, and helped out the sound track of the love scenes with whistles, shrieks, hoots, giggles, and the loud sucking noises of a mule's hoofs in thick mud. "How can you stand this?" he murmured to Iris.
