PARTISAN REVIEW
513
crying. Everyone in the movie house appears to be crying except the
detectiYe, disguised as a baby, who is smoking a cigar and sleeping.
The movie is very sad, says the girl. The woman in the movie
has an incurable disease, which no one knows about except the woman
herself and her doctor, who dies just when he is about to discover a
cure. Meanwhile the man she loves, and has sent away, is fighting in
a war in some obscure part of the world.
The baby is halfway out of the bag when the girl pushes him
back in. The detective has woken in a suspicious mood. "May I pway
wit you pockeybook," he whispers to the girl in fake baby talk.
The tears on the purse block the air from coming through the
soft leather. The baby learns that it is next to impossible to revisit
old haunts. Using a nail file that he finds among assorted parapher–
nalia, he cuts a hole in the bottom of the purse just large enough for
him to slip through. A clatter of odd objects follows, but the baby is
away, crawling under seats. An enormous screen is facing him, the
oversized heads of a man and woman kissing, which is where he came
in. The closer he is, the more frightening the picture. He has never
seen lips so large or so red. When the large woman-face cries, her
tears are like a waterfall. He thinks he will never get out from under
them.
He is hungry, he announces, brushing away a small tear with
the back of his fist, climbing down .
" Bye bye," he says, waving as he does with both hands. He
patters into the kitchen and while a random thought or two crosses
my mind , I hear him ask his mother for a cookie.
"And one for me too," I call after him, flexing my legs to
restore circulation.
" If
you get your father," she says, " we'll all have our dinner
together."
