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By Root 6240 0

death. What options present themselves? One option is to train yourself gradually into oblivion so that no great change has taken place when you have died. Another option is to increase the bitterness of life so that death is a desirable release. (In this the rest of mankind will fully collaborate.) There is a further option seldom chosen. That option is to let the deepest elements in you disclose their deepest information. If there is nothing but nonbeing and oblivion waiting for us, the prevailing beliefs have not misled us, and that’s that. This would astonish me, for the prevailing beliefs seldom satisfy my need for truth. Still the possibility must be allowed. Suppose, however, that oblivion is not the case? What, then, have I been doing for about six decades? I think that I never believed that oblivion was the case and by five and a half decades of distortion and absurdity I have challenged and disputed the alleged rationality and finality of the oblivion view.

These were the thoughts whirling through my head in the top story of the Plaza Hotel. Renata was still criticizing the mansard room. I always gave her a grand time in New York, spent magnificently, blew my money like a Klondike miner. Urbanovich had grounds for his opinion that I was a wild old guy, that I was jettisoning the capital to keep it out of enemy hands, and he was restraining me. But it wasn’t his money, was it? However, the matter was very odd, for all kinds of people with whom I was scarcely acquainted had claims on it. There was, for instance, Pinsker, Denise’s lawyer, the hairy man with the cheese-omelette cravat. I didn’t even know the man, we had never exchanged a single personal word. How did he get his hand into my pocket?

“What arrangements are we going to make?” said Renata.

“For you, in Italy? Will a thousand dollars hold you for a week?”

“The most awful things are said about you back in Chicago, Charlie. You should hear what a reputation you have. Of course Denise sees to that. She even works on the kids and they spread her view, too. You’re supposed to be unbearable. Mother hears that everywhere. But when a person gets to know you, you turn out to be sweet—as sweet a guy as I ever knew. What do you say we make love? We don’t have to take off all our clothes. I know you sometimes like it half-and-half.” She removed her bottom garments, unhooking her bra for easy access, and settled herself on a corner of the bed in all the fullness, smoothness, and beauty of her nether half, her face white and her brows going up with piety. I faced her in my shirttails. She said, “Let’s store up a little comfort for our separation.”

Then, behind us on the night table, the small light of the telephone began to beat silently, to pulsate. Someone was trying to reach me. Whose pulsations came first, was the question.

Renata began to laugh. “You know the most talented nuisances,” she said. “They always know when to bother you. Well? Answer it. The occasion is ruined anyway. You look anxious. You probably are thinking about the kids.”

The caller was Thaxter. He said, “I’m downstairs. Are you busy? Can you come to the Palm Court? I have important news.”

“To be continued,” said Renata, cheerful enough. We put our clothing on and went downstairs to find Thaxter. I didn’t recognize him at first, for he was wearing a new outfit, a Western hat and his velvet trousers were tucked into cowboy boots.

“What’s this?” I said.

“The good news is that I’ve just signed a contract for that book on the temperamental dictators,” he said. “Qaddafi, Amin, and those other types. What’s more, Charlie, we can get another contract. Today. Tonight, if you like. And I think we should. It would be a really good deal for you. And oh, by the way, on the house phone next to me there was a lady also asking for you. She’s the widow of the poet Fleisher, I believe, or his divorced wife.”

“Kathleen? \\Vhere has she gone? Where is she?” I said.

“I told her we had urgent business and she said she had some shopping to do anyway. She said you could meet in the Palm Court in about an hour.