566
PARTISAN REVIEW
the wheel and Henry looking nervous; Bloody Marys and
sardine finger-sandwiches were served under the leaves on the
patio. "You're turning into a regular boozer," Roy told Henry
sarcastically at II :30. "It's quite spicy," gasped Henry. At 11 :45
Henrietta commented favorably on the patio's absence of mos–
quitoes. "That may be true," answered Rita, smacking her
fingertips, "but there are enough spiders to make up for them."
At noon Roy stood up. "Give your baby a good first name," he
told his guests sonorously, "and then give it a better middle
one." (The statement was not supposed to mean anything,
necessarily, it was just supposed to sound sonorous.) Roy and
Henrietta left the shade to play horseshoes. The percussive
sounds from the sunny, close-cropped lawn continued for half
an hour while Rita and Henry made political chit-chat marked
by a near perfect shortage of facts and mutually agreeable
conclusions. By 12:30 their conversation had turned personal.
Rita asked him-clang! a howl and a squeal told her a rematch
was to begin-how his doctoral program was set up, if he looked
forward to the baby, did he feel sad about leaving the States, why
he kept his shirt on in such weather. In reply to the last, Henry
lowered his shirt and showed her the painful heat blisters on his
shoulders; Rita shuddered, gaped, dared to touch ... finally her
breath trembled so strangely at the sight of the injury that she
went inside to make another batch of Bloodys. A leaf floated
down onto Henry's head. Rita returned with nail polish on the
tray and began to apply it to one hand, then the other. "Roy
always lets me win," wailed Henrietta from the horseshoe pit.
"Nonsense!" bellowed Roy, reaching the patio suddenly and
dropping himself onto his stool, "I let no one win! Ever!" They
nibbled and drank. They perspired, all four: Roy steamed,
shaking his massive head and sprinkling everyone; Rita seemed
cool but, oppressed by her husband's reappearance, occasionally
sighed at an oversized drop of sweat that tumbled down from the
yellow ribbon at her hairline; Henrietta took Henry's soggy
hand in her soggy hand. Peace and balance reigned for a quarter
hour until, toward one o'clock, a second leaf landed on Henry's
head. Looking up, Henry managed to spill the leaf and to study
