404
PARTISAN REVIEW
looked at them since.
Before they sat down to dinner the telephone began to ring. Ceci
in
the
kitchen (with Charlotte who was helping her) and Paul in the living room
(with Barry: the men were watching a televised tennis tournament) made no
move to answer it. The ringing continued for what seemed like a long time
then stopped and resumed again while they were having dinner and again
neither of the Riegels made a move to answer it. Paul grinned running both
hands roughly through the bushy patches of hair at the sides of his head and
said, "When the world beats a path to your doorstep beat it back, friends!
Beat it back Jor Juck's sake!"
His extravagant words were meant to be funny of course but would
have required another atmosphere altogether to be so.
As
it was, the Car–
sons could only stare and smile in embarrassment.
Ceci filled the silence by saying loudly, "Life's little ironies! - you spend
a lifetime making yourself famous then you try to back off and dismantle it.
But it won't dismantle! It's a mummy and you're inside it!"
" - not
in
a mummy," Paul said, staring smiling at the lobster on his
plate which he'd barely eaten, " - you are a mummy." He had been drinking
steadily, Scotch on the rocks, and now wine, since arriving home.
Ceci laughed sharply. " 'In,' 'are,' what's the difference?" she said, ap–
pealing to the Carsons. She reached out to squeeze Barry's hand, hard. "In
any case you're a goner, right?"
Paul said, "No -
you're
a goner."
The evening continued in this vein. The Carsons sent despairing
glances at each otller.
The telephone began to ring and this time Paul rose to answer it. He
walked stiffly, and took his glass of wine with him. He took the call not in the
kitchen but in anotller room at the rear of the house and he was gone so long
that Charlotte felt moved to ask if something was wrong? Ceci Riegel stared
at her coldl y. The whites ofCeci's eyes too showed above the rims of the
iris giving her a fey festive party-look at odds with her carelessly combed
hair and a tiredness deep in her face. "With the mea!?" she asked. "With the
house? With us? With
you?
I don't know of anything wrong."
Charl otte had never been so rebuffed in her adult life. Barry too felt
the force of the insult. After a long stunned moment Charlotte murmured an
apology, and Barry too murmured something vague, placating, embarrassed.
They sat in suspension, not speaking, scarcely moving, until at last Paul
returned. His cheeks were ruddy as if they'd been heartily slapped and his
eyes were bright. He carried a bottle of his favorite Napa Valley wine which
he'd been saving, he said,just for tonight. "This is a truly special occasion!
We've really missed you guys!"
