480
PARTISAN REVIEW
And that was how Paco, too, had whimpered, lying on his face
down there on the grass, thought Pepe Monson, as he walked up to
the rim of King's Park; as he paused on the rim and looked back, try–
ing to see where he had left Paco lying at the bottom of the bowl–
shaped park. But he could see nothing in the darkness; and turning
around, he saw the street dazzling before him, shadows of dwarf pines
lacing the edges, and cars' headlights knifing through the fog. Across
the street, behind the fog-its doorways and windows blurrily shining–
stood Paco's apartment house, where Mary and her soup waited.
He knew now what Mary had known for some time: for
both
of them, though they had stepped through no mirrors, the safe glass
had cracked and things from the other side had begun to seep through.
Out of the fog, this morning, had come drifting the stylized girl
in
black furs and a black hat, with gray gloves on her hands and pearls
at her throat; had come drifting the madonna-like lady belted up in
a white fur jacket, with a polka-dotted scarf round her neck and gold
coins swinging from her ears; had come drifting Paco in a dark-blue
turtleneck sweater, with a Boris Karloff look in the eye; had corne
drifting his father, sprawled forward in a chair, unconscious, though
his eyes were open and his mouth smiled ...
But you've got your own will!
he had cried to Paco-and realized
now that he had been crying to a ghost; that he was crying to a
world of will-deprived ghosts.
-I'm just waiting. Sooner or later, when they call I'll corne
running.
-And crabs. Crabs crawling everywhere. Wherever I place a foot
I crush a crab.
-When I was a little girl I thought everybody else had two navels.
-When I was a little girl people like your father were my con-
science, walking around in elegant clothes.
-Dust and crabs, dust and crabs . . .
The mirror's cracked world was safe no longer; was perilous with
broken glass, teeming with ghosts; was now the world where Paco
waited for the stranglehold and dear good Mary told lies and the
cautious Rita was dazzled by dragons and Tony hid in a monastery
and fathers took drugs and mothers had lost their dictionaries and
young women had two navels . . .
Pepe shivered at a sudden gust of cold wind. H e tucked up his
coat collar, plunged his hands into his pockets, and hurried across the
street-to the lighted doorways and windows, to Mary and her waiting
soup.
