Sweet land stories - E. L. Doctorow [58]
Not all the time, Molloy said.
Behind her, standing in attendance, was a very young Marine in olive drab too warm for the climate. He had the flat-top haircut, the ramrod posture, the rows of ribbons, of a recruitment poster.
This is my friend Corporal Tom Furman.
When the corporal put his hand on her shoulder, she reached back and covered his hand.
Tom is visiting. He just flew in today.
Where are you stationed, son?
When he didn’t answer, Chrissie Stevens said, You can tell him. Go ahead—nothing’s going to happen. It’s been decided.
Sir, I’m posted at the White House.
Well, Molloy said, that’s a plum assignment. Does it come with the luck of the draw or is it saved for the very exceptional?
Sir, yes. We’re chosen I suppose, sir.
Ah me, ah me, Chrissie Stevens said. Can we all sit down, please? Pull up a chair for Agent Molloy and you sit beside me here, she said to the Marine as she patted the sofa cushion.
And so the two men sat as directed. Molloy hadn’t anticipated Chrissie Stevens as a Southern belle. But she was very much that. His own daughters, straightforward field-hockey types, would have taken an instant dislike to her.
She was strikingly attractive, very pale, with high cheekbones and gray eyes. But what was mesmeric was her voice. That was where the vestal-virgin effect came from. She had a child’s soft Southern lilt, and when she lowered her eyes, her long blond lashes falling like a veil over them, it was as if she had to examine in her mind the things she was saying to make sure they were correct, and the effect of an ethereal modesty was complete.
I’m not here of my own volition, Agent Molloy. Apparently I’ve done something for which the only possible explanation is that I’ve gone off the deep end. But if that is true, what other questions are left to ask?
I have just a few.
Though it’s not at all bad here, she said, turning to the corporal. They fatten you up and give you a pill that makes you not care about anything much. They stand there until they see you swallow it. I’m out to pasture right now. Are my words slurred? I mean, why not, why not, you can dream your life away, she said with her sad smile. That’s not so bad, is it?
Molloy said: Did you know that the boy’s parents are faced with deportation?
Clearly, she didn’t.
But I think that can be stopped, he said. I think there’s a way to see that it doesn’t happen.
She was silent. Then she mumbled something that he couldn’t hear.
I beg your pardon?
Deport me, Agent Molloy. Send me anywhere. Send me to Devil’s Island. I’m ready. I want nothing more to do with this place. I mean, why here rather than anywhere else? It’s all the same, it’s all horribly awful.
Molloy waited.
Oh Lord, she said, they always win, don’t they. They are very skillful. It didn’t come out quite as we planned—we are such amateurs—but even if it had, I suppose they would have known how to handle it. I just thought maybe this could restore them, put them back among us. It would be a kind of shock treatment if they felt the connection, for even just a moment, that this had something to do with them, the gentlemen who run things? That’s all I wanted. What redemption for little Chrissie if she could put a tincture of shame into their hearts. Of course I know they didn’t give our gardener’s son the asthma he was born with. And after all they didn’t force his family to live where the air smells like burning tires. And I know Daddy and his exalted friends are not in their personal nature violent and would never lift a hand against a child. But, you see, they are configured gentlemen. Am I wrong to want to include you, Agent Molloy? Are you not one of the configured gentlemen?
Configured in what way?
Configured to win. And fuck all else.
Her Marine reached over and held her hand.
What do you think? Chrissie Stevens said. Am I making sense? Or am I the family disgrace my father says I am?
The both of them were looking at Molloy now. They made a handsome couple.
Would you like some refreshment, Agent Molloy? There’s a bell over there—they