Trust by Cynthia Ozick Read Free Book Online Page A

he wailed; "I can't understand this refrigerator, miss."
    "Serve the drinks Without ice," I suggested.
    "Mrs. Vand wouldn't like it. She told me expressly to watch the ice supply," he mourned.
    "The electric plug is out"
    "Oh my God."
    The refrigerator began to buzz and the turntable stopped.
    "What a pig," remarked my guest to the barman's receding back; she plugged in the record-player and anticipatorily watched it resume its lazy revolutions. The refrigerator died out into silence. "Fm putting Lesson Five on now," she announced. "The man on the record grunts something in French and then he waits a minute, and you repeat it after him. That's how it works. It's crazy."
    "Look," I said, "what happened to the capital letters?"
    "Oh, Allegra got her way. Naturally. Ed said he couldn't risk being thrown
out,
like ¿he fellow before him. Then someone else said maybe she wanted the little wee letters all over because she was too stingy to pay for capitals—and Ed said no, she was too well-heeled to bother being stingy." The girl thrust her frank gaze at me. "Is she
that
rich?"
    At that moment the record began to speak out of the void—mellifluous, consoling and caressing, incorporeal, like the voice of Jesus Christ in the movies.
    Et ceci, c'est moins cher ou plus cher?
said the voice, and paused hollowly.
Y a-t-il l'eau courante, chaude et froide?
Another pause, slightly longer, and then, slowly, lingeringly, unctuously, with the assurance of heaven's abiding love,
Certainement,
it whispered;
Les salles de bain ont été refaites récemment.
    "You know why I ask," the girl persisted.
    I shrugged.
    "Because they said she has gilt monograms on
everything.
Then one of them yelled he'd take bets."
    I repeated dully: "Bets?"
    "That she'd even got her broomstick monogrammed!" My companion gleamed joyously. "They sent me after it then."
    "You had very little trouble finding your way," I commended her.
    "To the kitchen, you mean? Well, my date was here before, you know."
    This seemed improbable; I looked at her coolly.
    "One of the fellows down from Harvard Law. His father brought him here to dinner once, years ago. His father is Mrs. Vand's attorney." She swooped into a laugh. "You know it didn't have a thing on itl It was just an ordinary broom."
    "That must have disappointed everybody," I observed.
    "Oh no, just the ones who'd lost. And the ones who'd won said she was B . snob anyway, and then they began to argue about whether she was or wasn't a snob."
    "Which side did McGovern take?" I quietly wondered.
    "He said he knew she was a snob, because she supports him. I mean she actually feeds him and clothes him, and all he does is write poems for
Bushelbasket.
It's weird."
    "It's weird," I agreed.
    "He said patronage is the business of snobs. It gives them somebody to look down on. Then one of the law-school fellows asked him how he could stand being looked down on all the time, and Ed said, 'Oh, it's a job like any other.' And all the law-school boys started to laugh. They just
howled.
"
    "It doesn't sound like much of a fight."
    "Well, so then I was going to take the broom back to the kitchen—and Ed said, 'Give me that thing, will you?' and he grabbed it and cracked the other fellow with it—right across the shoulder, you know, and said, 'I dub thee damnfool,' or something, and then they all piled up on each other. —Didn't you
see?
" she exclaimed. "It was right out of a Western."
    "I was upstairs. All I heard was a lot of yelling."
    "You missed the best part! After that it deteriorated to just a discussion, I don't know on what—I hate discussions, they're such a bother. Then after a while Ed McGovern got up and started to dance with the broom—he kept screaming how it was the effigy of Mary Shelley—so I came on in here."
    The tale was ended, and all at once we had nothing more to say to one another.
    We listened to the record.
    Vous n'avez qu'une heure,
cooed the voice, and permitted itself a starchy well-bred