Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [205]
“Bonjour, madame.”
“Ping is from Beijing by way of Paris,” Ellie Mallard said to Krumholtz. The children, Angus and Gretel, glanced up quickly at Krumholtz and, finding nothing in particular that interested them, turned back to their writing. They were dressed in identical shirts, trousers, and shoes. “All their classes are taught in French and Mandarin.”
“Except science,” Angus said sourly without looking up. “We do science in English. We just learned that when scientists split the atom, God got killed.”
“Do you have children, Mr. Krumholtz?” Ellie Mallard asked, gazing directly into his eyes. He forced himself not to look away. What a weapon beauty could be, and only the rich could own it.
“Yes,” he said. “I have two daughters.”
“Jimmy and I, we believe in public schooling,” Ellie Mallard said, waving her hand at the schoolroom and the overhead projector and maps of the world, “but the local school is much too far away, and the school bus doesn’t even come out here, as you can imagine. So there’s no way to get there. We’re just lucky to get the mail! Besides, I think children should learn foreign languages, don’t you? Given the world that they will be entering?”
“Maybe so,” Krumholtz said. “But French? I understand the need for Chinese, but French …”
“Mandarin for work, French for play!” Ellie Mallard said brightly. “Well, we mustn’t take up any more of the children’s time.” She closed the concrete door behind her. Krumholtz heard Gretel saying good-bye as the door silently shut.
“I’d be teaching them Spanish, myself,” he said.
“Oh, Spanish is so easy, they can just pick it up along the way. And, what, they’re going to live in Mexico?” She threw her head back and laughed. “It’s just a hobby language, don’t you think? Or of servitude?” Krumholtz’s older daughter was learning Spanish and finding it difficult going. “Now here,” she said, returning to the main hallway, “is one of our Bento Schwartz photographs. Do you like it?” She gazed at it thoughtfully. “I think it’s quite marvelous.”
The photograph was large, three feet by about five feet. It appeared to be a photograph of a trash heap. “What is it?” Krumholtz asked.
“Well, it’s part of a series called Disposed,” she said. “This one, by coincidence, since we were just talking about Mexico, this one is of the Mexico City landfill. It’s a digital photograph, but Bento has personally colorized some of the objects in it, such as that bucket in the foreground. Isn’t it a beautiful blue? I think it’s ravishing. He paints over certain objects to give them, I don’t know, a feeling. I always find something new in the photograph to study every time I look at it. It has quite an aura. Because of the colors. And the detail. And the dynamic negative space. Do you know Bento’s photographs?”
“No,” Krumholtz said. “Bento Schwartz?”
“He’s very well known,” she said doubtfully. Krumholtz had taken out his small notebook and was writing down the names of the artists he had heard her mention, and he was making an effort to get the details about the photograph. Squatters’ shacks rested on the landfill, and Krumholtz could see the squatters, miserable wretches, inside them. Krumholtz felt an old familiar hatred of the rich welling up inside him. They were all obtuse in an almost comical way. He looked down and saw that Mrs. Mallard was barefoot. “Why did you ask me about angels?”
“Excuse me?”
“When I was in the car, at the gate, before you buzzed me in, you asked me whether I believe in angels.”
“I did? No, I don’t think so. Why would I do that? I didn’t buzz you in. It might have been Lorraine. Lorraine is the other woman. Incidentally, I should have asked you whether you’d like to freshen up.” She turned and gazed at him again. “The bathroom’s right here.” She pointed at the opposite wall.
“Oh, okay,” he said. “Where is it? I don’t see it.”
She touched the wall, and the concrete gave way again, and Krumholtz, who now felt like an angry resentful ambassador-without-portfolio