A Visit From the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan [61]
Dolly and Lulu rode with Arc in his charcoal gray Jaguar, a driver peeling downhill along tiny streets, sending pedestrians lunging against walls and darting into doorways to avoid being crushed. The city shimmered below: millions of white slanted buildings steeping in a smoky haze. Soon they were surrounded by it. The city’s chief source of color seemed to be the laundry flapping on every balcony.
The driver pulled over beside an outdoor market: heaps of sweating fruit and fragrant nuts and fake-leather purses. Dolly eyed the produce critically as she and Lulu followed Arc among the stalls. The oranges and bananas were the largest she’d seen, but the meat looked dangerous. Dolly could see from the careful nonchalance of vendors and customers alike that they knew who Arc was.
“Is there anything you would like?” Arc asked Lulu.
“Yes, please,” Lulu said, “one of those.” It was a star fruit; Dolly had seen them at Dean & DeLuca. Here they lay in obscene heaps, studded with flies. Arc took one, nodding curtly at the vendor, an older man with a skeletal chest and a kind, anxious face. The man smiled, nodding eagerly at Dolly and Lulu, but his eyes looked frightened.
Lulu took the dusty, unwashed fruit, wiped it carefully on her short-sleeved polo shirt, and sank her teeth into its bright green rind. Juice sprayed her collar. She laughed and wiped her mouth on her hand. “Mom, you have to try this,” she said, and Dolly took a bite. She and Lulu shared the star fruit, licking their fingers under Arc’s watchful eyes. Dolly felt oddly buoyant. Then she realized why: Mom. It was the first time Lulu had spoken the word in nearly a year.
Arc led the way inside a crowded tea shop. A group of men scattered from a corner table to give them a place to sit, and a forced approximation of the shop’s former happy bustle resumed. A waiter poured sweet mint tea into their cups with a shaking hand. Dolly tried to give him a reassuring look, but his eyes fled hers.
“Do you do this often?” she asked Arc. “Walk around the city?”
“The general makes a habit of moving among the people,” Arc said. “He wants them to feel his humanity, to witness it. Of course, he must do this very carefully.”
“Because of his enemies.”
Arc nodded. “The general unfortunately has many enemies. Today, for example, there were threats to his home, and it was necessary to relocate. He does this often, as you know.”
Dolly nodded. Threats to his home?
Arc smiled. “His enemies believe he is here, but he is far away.”
Dolly glanced at Lulu. The star fruit had left a shiny ring around her mouth. “But…we’re here,” she said.
“Yes,” Arc said. “Only us.”
Dolly lay awake most of that night, listening to coos and rustles and squawks that mimicked sounds of assassins prowling the grounds in search of the general and his cohort: herself, in other words. She had become the helpmate and fellow target of General B., a source of terror and anxiety to those he ruled.
How had it come to this? As usual, Dolly found herself revisiting the moment when the plastic trays first buckled and the life she had relished for so many years poured away. But tonight, unlike countless other nights when Dolly tipped down that memory chute, Lulu lay across from her in the king-sized bed, asleep in a frilly nightie, her doe’s knees tucked under her. Dolly felt the warmth of her daughter’s body, this child of her middle age, of an accidental pregnancy resulting from a fling with a movie-star client. Lulu believed her father was dead; Dolly had shown her pictures of an old boyfriend.
She slid across the bed and kissed Lulu’s warm cheek. It had made no sense at all to have a child—Dolly was pro-choice, riveted to her career. Her decision had been clear, yet she’d hesitated to make the appointment—hesitated through morning sickness, mood swings, exhaustion. Hesitated until she knew, with a shock of relief and petrified joy, that it was too late.
Lulu stirred and Dolly moved closer, gathering her daughter in her arms. Unlike when she was awake, Lulu relaxed