This Perfect Day

"About six months ago," Chip said. "Are you in New Madrid?"

"Pollensa."

"What are you doing?"

"Working in a mine," Chip said.

"Christ, that's a shut-off," Karl said, and after a moment, "It's hell here, isn't it?"

"Yes," Chip said, thinking He even uses their words. Hell. My God. I'll bet he says prayers. "I wish these phones were working so I could get a look at you," Karl said.

Suddenly Chip was ashamed of his hostility. He told Karl about Lilac and about her pregnancy; Karl told him that he had been married in the Family but had come over alone. He wouldn't let Chip congratulate him on his success. "The things I sell are awful," he said. "Appealing little lunky children. But I manage to do my own work three days a week, so I can't complain. Listen, Li—no, what is it, Chip? Chip, listen, we've got to get together. I've got a motorbike; I'll come down there one evening. No, wait," he said, "are you doing anything next Sunday, you and your wife?" Lilac looked anxiously at Chip. He said, "I don't think so. I'm not sure."

"I'm having some friends over," Karl said. "You come too, all right? Around six o'clock." With Lilac nodding at him, Chip said, "We'll try. We'll probably be able to make it."

"See that you do," Karl said. He gave Chip his address. "I'm glad you got over," he said. "It's better than there anyway, isn't it?"

"A little," Chip said.

"I'll expect you next Sunday," Karl said. "So long, brother."

"So long," Chip said, and tapped off. Lilac said, 'We're going, aren't we?"

"Do you have any idea what the railfare's going to be?" Chip said. "Oh, Chip..."

"All right," he said. "All right, we'll go. But I'm not taking any favors from him. And you're not asking for any. You remember that."

Every evening that week Lilac worked on the best of their clothes, taking off the frayed sleeves of a green dress, remending a trouser leg so that the mend was less noticeable.

The building, at the very edge of New Madrid's Steely-town, was in no worse condition than many native buildings. Its lobby was swept, and smelled only slightly of whiskey and fish and perfume, and the elevator worked well. A pushbutton was set in new plaster next to Karl's door: a bell to be rung. Chip pressed it. He stood stiffly, and Lilac held his arm.

"Who is it?" a man's voice asked. "Chip Newmark," Chip said.

The door was unlocked and opened, and Karl—a thirty-five-year-old bearded Karl with the long-ago Karl's sharp-focused eyes—grinned and grabbed Chip's hand and said, "Li! I thought you weren't coming!"

"We ran into some good-natured lunkies," Chip said. "Oh Christ," Karl said, and let them in.

He locked the door and Chip introduced Lilac. She said, "Hello, Mr. Newgate," and Karl, taking her held-out hand and looking at her face, said, "It's Ashi. Hello, Lilac."

"Hello, Ashi," she said.

To Chip, Karl said, "Did they hurt you?"

"No," Chip said. "Just 'recite the Vow' and that kind of cloth."

"Bastards," Karl said. "Come on, I'll give you a drink and to Chip, "I think all you people are beautiful. The Family may not have any freedom but it's way ahead of us in physical appearance. I'd give anything to be lean and tan and slant-eyed." She talked on—about the Family's sensible attitude toward sex—and Chip found himself with a glass in his hand and Karl and Lilac talking to other people and the woman talking to him. Lines of black paint edged and extended her brown eyes. "You people are so much more open than we are," she said. "Sexually, I mean. You enjoy it more."

An immigrant woman came over and said, "Isn't Heinz coming, Marge?"

"He's in Palma," the woman said, turning. "A wing of the hotel collapsed."

"Would you excuse me, please?" Chip said, and sidestepped away. He went to the other end of the room, nodded at people sitting there, and drank some of his whiskey, looking at a painting on the wall—slabs of brown and red on a white background. The whiskey tasted better than Hassan's. It was less bitter and searing; lighter and more pleasant to drink. The painting with its brown and red slabs was only a flat design, interesting to look at for a moment but with nothing in it connected to life. Karl's (no, Ashi'sl) A-in-a-circle was in one of its bottom corners. Chip wondered whether it was one of the bad paintings he sold or, since it was hanging there in his living room, part of his "own work" that he had spoken of with satisfaction. Wasn't he still doing the beautiful unbraceleted men and women he had drawn back at the Academy?

He drank some more of the whiskey and turned to the people sitting near him: three men and a woman, all immigrants. They were talking about furniture. He listened for a few minutes, drinking, and moved away. Lilac was sitting next to the beak-nosed native woman—Julia. They were smoking and talking, or rather Julia was talking and Lilac was listening.

He went to the table and poured more whiskey into his glass. He lit a cigarette.