THALIA SELZ
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would probably rather be playing than listening to her father
shout. He wondered what games she would play: House, per–
haps, and Doctor and maybe Cowboys and Indians, though he
himself did not think little girls ought to play Cowboys and In–
dians which was a game for rough little boys. Would she like to
play Children's Crusade? He imagined himself playing with her:
she with her dark curls and sulky eyes dressed in a ragged red
gown, marching with thousands of other children across the
Alps and down to Venice, where evil pirates and Doges lure them
onto huge gondolas. The little girl is manacled in a long line
with other little girls; they are going to be sold into slavery,
when suddenly he appears, in the very prow of her gondola, wav–
ing an immense pike with which to rescue her-
The man was off on another tangent now. Something
about amino acids and the work being done by the Germans. "I
need somebody to translate," the man was shouting. "Maude can
read German, but the chemical terminology she doesn't know it."
Athos half-rose in his chair, but Moscow, who was swoop–
ing around the long table with plates of lamb and okra stew
leaned down to whisper in the man's ear; then he nodded toward
Athos. The man looked around immediately, and Athos found
himself the target of a long, curious stare. Then the man stood
up and walked toward Athos with short, quick steps rather odd
for such a thin, long-legged man. He was tall for a Greek and
bony. A big head with a massive, slightly bulging forehead and
that nose.
Athas didn't know whether to sit or stand, so he remained
in a half-crouching position with his napkin held over his fly.
The man approaching him, meanwhile, was holding his linen
napkin over
his
fly.
It
wasn't that their flys were open; it was be–
cause each of them was in such a hurry to meet the other that
they came as they were, like a certain kind of costume party.
" Ti kahnyis,"
the man said "I am called Panayotis Rigas."
He leaned over the table to shake Athos's hand. Athos mumbled
his own name and leaned over to shake Pano's hand, and they
bumped foreheads smartly. Athas could smell the chemicals on
the man: warm red and brown smells mixed with an acrid purple
smell. Frank, scientific smells that made Athos think of labora–
tories and hard, useful work.
He rubbed his forehead, but the man seemed hardly to feel
