Jailbird - Kurt Vonnegut [64]
Mary Kathleen now spoke very softly. “God must have sent you,” she said.
“There, there,” I said. I went on hugging her.
“There’s nobody I can trust anymore,” she said.
“Now, now,” I said.
“Everybody’s after me,” she said. “They want to cut off my hands.”
“There, there,” I said.
“I thought you were dead,” she said.
“No, no,” I said.
“I thought everybody was dead but me,” she said.
“There, there,” I said.
“I still believe in the revolution, Walter,” she said.
“I’m glad,” I said.
“Everybody else lost heart,” she said. “I never lost heart.”
“Good for you,” I said.
“I’ve been working for the revolution every day,” she said.
“I’m sure,” I said.
“You’d be surprised,” she said.
“Get her a hot bath,” said somebody in the crowd.
“Get some food in her,” said somebody else.
“The revolution is coming, Walter—sooner than you know,” said Mary Kathleen.
“I have a hotel room where you can rest awhile,” I said. “I have a little money. Not much, but some.”
“Money,” she said, and she laughed. Her scornful laughter about money had not changed. It was exactly as it had been forty years before.
“Shall we go?” I said. “My room isn’t far from here.”
“I know a better place,” she said.
“Get her some One-a-Day vitamins,” said somebody in the crowd.
“Follow me, Walter,” said Mary Kathleen. She was growing strong again. It was Mary Kathleen who now separated herself from me, and not the other way around. She became raucous again. I picked up three of her bags, and she picked up the other three. Our ultimate destination, it would turn out, was the very top of the Chrysler Building, the quiet showroom of The American Harp Company up there. But first we had to get the crowd to part for us, and she began to call people in our way “capitalist fats” and “bloated plutocrats” and “bloodsuckers” and all that again.
Her means of locomotion in her gargantuan basketball shoes was this: She barely lifted the shoes from the ground, shoving one forward and then the other, like cross-country skis, while her upper body and shopping bags swiveled wildly from side to side. But that oscillating old woman could go like the wind! I panted to keep up with her, once we got clear of the crowd. We were surely the cynosure of all eyes. Nobody had ever seen a shopping-bag lady with an assistant before.
When we got to Grand Central Station, Mary Kathleen said that we had to make sure we weren’t being followed. She led me up and down escalators, ramps, and stairways, looking over her shoulders for pursuers all the time. We scampered through the Oyster Bar three times. She brought us at last to an iron door at the end of a dimly lit corridor. We surely were all alone. Our hearts were beating hard.
When we had recovered our breaths, she said to me, “I am going to show you something you mustn’t tell anybody about.”
“I promise,” I said.
“This is our secret,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
I had assumed that we were as deep in the station as anyone could go. How wrong I was! Mary Kathleen opened the iron door on an iron staircase going down, down, down. There was a secret world as vast as Carlsbad Caverns below. It was used for nothing anymore. It might have been a sanctuary for dinosaurs. It had in fact been a repair shop for another family of extinct monsters—locomotives driven by steam.
Down the steps we went.
My God—what majestic machinery there must have been down there at one time! What admirable craftsmen must have worked there! In conformance with fire laws, I suppose, there were lightbulbs burning here and there. And there were little dishes of rat poison set around. But there were no other signs that anyone had been down there for years.
“This is my home, Walter,” she said.
“Your what?” I said.
“You wouldn’t want me sleeping outdoors, would you?” she said.
“No,” I said.
“Be glad, then,” she said, “that I have such a nice and private home.”
“I am,” I said.
“You not only talked to me—you hugged me,” she said. “That’s how I knew I could trust you.”
“Um,” I said.
“You’re not after my hands,” she said.
“No,” I said.
“You know there