Ada, or Ador: A Family Chronicle

‘Well,’ said Van, ‘you can always make a little cream, KREM or KREME — or even better — there’s KREMLI, which means Yukon prisons. Go through her ORHIDEYA.’

‘Through her silly orchid,’ said Lucette.

‘And now,’ said Ada, ‘Adochka is going to do something even sillier.’ And taking advantage of a cheap letter recklessly sown sometime before in the seventh compartment of the uppermost fertile row, Ada, with a deep sigh of pleasure, composed: the adjective TORFYaNUYu which went through a brown square at F and through two red squares (37 x 9 = 333 points) and got a bonus of 50 (for placing all seven blocks at one stroke) which made 383 in all, the highest score ever obtained for one word by a Russian scrambler. ‘There!’ she said, ‘Ouf! Pas facile.’ And brushing away with the rosy knuckles of her white hand the black-bronze hair from her temple, she recounted her monstrous points in a smug, melodious tone of voice like a princess narrating the poison-cup killing of a superfluous lover, while Lucette fixed Van with a mute, fuming appeal against life’s injustice — and then looking again at the board emitted a sudden howl of hope:

‘It’s a place name! One can’t use it! It’s the name of the first little station after Ladore Bridge!’

‘That’s right, pet,’ sang out Ada. ‘Oh, pet, you are so right! Yes, Torfyanaya, or as Blanche says, La Tourbière, is, indeed, the pretty but rather damp village where our cendrillon’s family lives. But, mon petit, in our mother’s tongue — que dis-je, in the tongue of a maternal grandmother we all share — a rich beautiful tongue which my pet should not neglect for the sake of a Canadian brand of French — this quite ordinary adjective means "peaty," feminine gender, accusative case. Yes, that one coup has earned me nearly 400. Too bad — ne dotyanula (didn’t quite make it).’

‘Ne dotyanula!’ Lucette complained to Van, her nostrils flaring, her shoulders shaking with indignation.

He tilted her chair to make her slide off and go. The poor child’s final score for the fifteen rounds or so of the game was less than half of her sister’s last masterstroke, and Van had hardly fared better, but who cared! The bloom streaking Ada’s arm, the pale blue of the veins in its hollow, the charred-wood odor of her hair shining brownly next to the lampshade’s parchment (a translucent lakescape with Japanese dragons), scored infinitely more points than those tensed fingers bunched on the pencil stub could ever add up in the past, present or future.

‘The loser will go straight to bed,’ said Van merrily, ‘and stay there, and we shall go down and fetch her — in exactly ten minutes — a big cup (the dark-blue cup!) of cocoa (sweet, dark, skinless Cadbury cocoa!).’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Lucette, folding her arms. ‘First, because it is only half-past eight, and, second, because I know perfectly well why you want to get rid of me.’

‘Van,’ said Ada, after a slight pause, ‘will you please summon Mademoiselle; she’s working with Mother over a script which cannot be more stupid than this nasty child is.’

‘I would like to know,’ said Van, ‘the meaning of her interesting observation. Ask her, Ada dear.’

‘She thinks we are going to play Scrabble without her,’ said Ada, ‘or, go through those Oriental gymnastics which, you remember, Van, you began teaching me, as you remember.’

‘Oh, I remember! You remember I showed you what my teacher of athletics, you remember his name, King Wing, taught me.’

‘You remember a lot, ha-ha,’ said Lucette, standing in front of them in her green pajamas, sun-tanned chest bare, legs parted, arms akimbo.

‘Perhaps the simplest —’ began Ada.

‘The simplest answer,’ said Lucette, ‘is that you two can’t tell my why exactly you want to get rid of me.’

‘Perhaps the simplest answer,’ continued Ada, ‘is for you, Van, to give her a vigorous, resounding spanking.’

‘I dare you!’ cried Lucette, and veered invitingly.

Very gently Van stroked the silky top of her head and kissed her behind the ear; and, bursting into a hideous storm of sobs, Lucette rushed out of the room. Ada locked the door after her.

‘She’s an utterly mad and depraved gipsy nymphet, of course,’ said Ada, ‘yet we must be more careful than ever… oh terribly, terribly, terribly… oh, careful, my darling.’

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