"Glad to see you're enjoying our little island. Come join us."
Lester divested himself of the drum and the hat. "Flossie, give this thing back to the kid. Bring me my sandals. Governor, this is Flossie. Flossie Something. She loves your island."
Atlas's embarrassment lasted no longer than it took him to jam a chair next to the governor's. He lit a giant cigar, and took charge. First he informed the delegates from Chad that he had once almost gone into a large cotton-raising enterprise in their country, similar to one that he owned in Mexico. The scheme had broken down because of tax difficulties. Next Atlas explained to the governor how to improve the economy of Amerigo. He spoke of citrus possibilities; the chronic water shortage could be solved by a ring of earth dams around the mountains. There was no need for the people to live in huts. Five hundred prefabricated units could be put up at a crack, using nothing but federal loans, and he could guarantee to do it himself and make a profit. Mrs. Sanders showed interest in this, throwing questions at him which he answered with blurry ease. The music started. Paperman instantly asked Mrs. Tramm to dance. She came along, half-dragged by him, smiling in her lopsided way. "What's your hurry, Norman?"
"Lester doesn't fascinate me."
"He's sort of cute, in a subhuman way."
Off in a shadowy corner of the terrace, she slid her tight skirt prettily up to mid-thigh to show him the dance step. Paperman was an adept dancer; soon he was rocking like everybody else, if a bit uncertainly. 'Very good, very good, you've got it," said Mrs. Tramm, tapping his shoulder. Her body moved in powerful undulations which he felt through his arms. "How long are you staying?"
Right now I never want to leave. I guess I'll go home tomorrow or the next day. As soon as our business is done."
"Why don't I drive you around a bit tomorrow? You should see the island."
"I'd stay just for that."
The steel-drum music hammered on his nerves, a strong, harsh, blood-warming noise. It stopped. A moment's pause, and the musicians began a slow, out-of-key, ragged Stardust. The magic lapsed. They were boys banging on oil drums. "Oh, hell, wouldn't you know?" Iris said. "The only music they can play, they despise. All they want is to out-do Guy Lombardo, whacking tin cans with sticks. And that's the Caribbean for you."
"I don't want to go back to the table," Paperman said.
The dancers were shuffling primly to the makeshift music. Iris Tramm was heavy and slow in his arms. "Nuts to this." She pulled away, leading him by a hand back to the table. "Reena, I have a brute of a headache. I'm turning in," she said in a low tone, not breaking into the argument that Lester was having with Tom Tilson about African copper mining, which the men from Chad were intently trying to follow. Bob Cohn and the naval lieutenant were gone. The saturnine governor, slumped in his chair, glanced at Mrs. Tramm with one raised eyebrow. He said to Paperman, "Are you leaving us, too?"
Mrs. Tramm swung Norman's hand. "He's just seeing me home."
"Well, be sure to come back," said Sanders. "We'll be going up to Government House for a nightcap."
"Melancholy dog, your governor," Paperman observed, as Iris led him through the lobby.
"He's not my governor. I'm a California girl, and that's where I'm returning. Maybe sooner than anybody thinks. The Caribbean's fine, but after a while it's like a steady diet of cream puffs."
"You'd be against my buying this place, then."
"Not at all. It's entirely different if you've got something to do. And I assume you'll be bringing your wife."
"Don't you have anything to do, Iris?"
"Oh, some sculpting, and I really came here to work on a book-or so I tell myself. I've actually written some of it. But there's no urgency in that sort of thing, you know. Nobody cares whether you do a day's work or not. And it's awfully pleasant to do nothing here."
They were descending a short stone staircase to the jasmine-scented moonlit lawn. Paperman was silent. Iris glanced at him sidewise. "Your wife might adore the island. What's she like? We go this way. I live in the Pink Cottage." She cut across the lawn, walking fast. Paperman strode beside her, thinking that the conversation was taking an unfortunate turn. It was no time, and no place, to be discussing Henny. They were almost at the door of the cottage when Iris said with a mocking edge in her voice, "I said, what's your wife like, Norman?"
Under a yellow insect-repelling lamp, a wooden scroll-sign hung over the entrance: Surrender. Insects swarmed around the light. "Honest, if that dumb sign hasn't embarrassed me more than once," exclaimed Iris. She turned to him, arms folded, and leaned against the door, her twisted smile blackly marked by the light from above. "Well, this has been fun. I hope you liked the fish."
Paperman was wondering, as almost any man under seventy would in these circumstances, whether he would be invited into Iris Tramm's cottage, and if so, what would happen inside. He said unsteadily, "My wife's wonderful, Iris."
"Is she pretty?"
"I think she is."
"Tall?"
"No. Not like you. You see, I like them short. Henny informed me of this fact when we got married. Once or twice she has reminded me."
"She sounds all right."
"Henny's a terrific woman."
"Would you like to come in for a drink?"
"Yes indeed."
"Come along. It's a hell of a time to end an evening, quarter to eleven." She opened the unlocked door, and he followed her in. As she flipped on a wall switch, Paperman heard a growl. "All right, it's just me and a friend, so shut up," she called, whereupon somewhere out of sight a dog began to snarl and bark, clanking a chain and scrabbling strong claws on wood. "My protector. Just stand your ground. You're not afraid of dogs, are you? -Okay, okay, I'm coming, shut your yap, darling." She went out to the porch. There were leaps, thumps, clanks, barks, and into the room bounded a large black German shepherd dog. It charged straight for him, eyes as red as its tongue, teeth gleaming in rows like a shark's. Paperman stood still; to retreat one step before this animal, he was certain, meant the loss of all of his throat that mattered. The dog halted an inch or two from him, glowering and slavering. Iris came in and cuffed the beast on the nose. "I said he's a friend, stupid. Don't you want out on the beach? Beach? Beach?"
The big animal looked at her, then at Paperman, and with a bound it catapulted out the back door.
"He's very clever," said Iris, "and he's lots of company. His name is Meadows. When he comes back he'll be all right. Sit down. What'll it be, more brandy?"
"Scotch with-ugh, with ice, if you've got it." Paperman was annoyed at his involuntary swallow.
"Unnerving, isn't he?" she said, from the kitchenette. "That's the idea. I bought him two years ago, after my divorce from Mr. Tramm, when I was alone in a big house in the Santa Barbara hills."
Paperman now became aware of how different this cottage was from the one he and Lester occupied; no hotel furnishings, no room divider. There was a large peach-colored divan with black throw cushions; an enormous round rug of lacy yellow straw; chairs, couches, and a dinette in modern Swedish; gaudy oil abstractions on the walls. One far wall in shadow was all books and phonograph records, floor to ceiling, except for the space taken by a formidable hi-fi. On that dim side of the room stood a plank table on sawhorses with clay figures, stained cloths, and sculpturing tools; and beside it an open portable typewriter and a stack of yellow paper on a wheeled stand. The place seemed split into a working, studio side, and a living side; and the smell on this living side was a strange mixture of delicate boudoir and coarse dog.
"Here's your booze," Iris said.
"What's this? I'm drinking alone?"
"I don't drink much, Norman. Coffee for me."
Meadows trotted into the room, favored Paperman with an absent-minded snarl, and flopped at the feet of his mistress. "Hello, fool. Were you a good dog out on the beach?" He looked up into her face with bright adoration.
Iris was curious about Atlas, or said she was, so Paperman described Lester's business; a flat topic, but with Meadows at her feet, any latent romance in the evening seemed to have died. Iris got more coffee after a while, refilled Paperman's drink, and brought out of the kitchenette a meaty beef bone, saying, "Bedtime for little doggies." The beast capered after her out to the porch, and Paperman heard the clank of a chain and some cooed silly endearments.
He wandered around the dark side of the room, inspecting her books and records; also the sculptures-a clenched hand, the head of a Negro boy, a sleeping dog. He said as she came in, "Is this what you do?"
"I play at it."
"You go in for heavyweight books."
"I read."
He had noticed grouped on a high shelf, above dozens of austere highbrow paperbacks and a shelf of mysteries, some worn books from a buried time in his own life: Marxist treatises of the thirties, thick tomes which he had once plowed through with dogged energy and -he now realized-unwitting religiosity. How long ago that was! He had gotten rid of those books during the McCarthy panic. Now he was ashamed of having done so. Henny had given him hell, but at the time it had seemed simple prudence. He said, "I'm surprised you bother your pretty head with economics."
"A heritage from my first marriage. I have four times this many in storage back home. An old book brings back memories. When I read John Strachey, I'm seventeen and in love again, and the smell of jonquils in a window box on Perry Street rises from the pages." She took up a guitar leaning in a dark corner. "Do you play?"
"No."
"I think I'm going to have to give it up. I liked cowboy music and folk songs long before they got to be the thing."
Paperman said, "That happens to everything in the States these days, Iris. The avant-garde can't keep ahead of the squares."
"Isn't it the truth?" Iris swept her hand over the guitar in a rich chord. "Well, let's pretend every second college boy isn't doing this, okay? It used to be fun."
She played and sang a lively Caribbean song he had never heard, The Zombie Jamboree:
"Back to back, belly to belly, I don't give a damn 'cause I done dead a'ready-"
All she did was strum chords, she was an inexpert player, but her singing was surprisingly good. Paperman was stung with a sudden notion that he knew this woman; whether she was really a performer, or the wife of an old friend, or-hardly conceivable-someone he had had a fling with in the dead past; but could you forget somebody like Iris Tramm? Perched on the edge of the divan, her charming legs tucked to one side, she struck strong low chords, and began to sing TB Blues; then Streets of Laredo; then It Makes No Difference Now. He sat in a low chair opposite her, sipping his drink, awash in nostalgia. She shot him a mischievous glance, and plucked out the first bars of a melody, very slowly, single note by single note: tonk. tonk. atonk torik. tonk. atonk-
He sat up, shocked. "Recognize it?"
"Recognize it!" She sang:
"I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night Alive as you or me; Says 1, Why Joe, you're ten years dead- 'I never died,' says he. 'I never died,' says he."
"Iris, where do I know you from?" said Paperman.
" 'The copper hosses killed you, Joe, They shot you, Joe,' says 1; 'Takes more than guns to kill a man,' Says Joe, 7 didn't die.' Says Joe, 'I didn't die.'"
Paperman had not heard Joe Hill for perhaps a dozen years. The prosperous ex-communists he knew didn't sing it, even if they got very drunk. But this song, especially in the throaty, sad way Iris was singing, brought back to Paperman the feeling of being young, strong, and throbbing with sexual drive; the wonderful comradeship of the left-wingers at the smoky boozy parties for Loyalist Spain, the exaltation of being on the inside of a movement that was going to save the world from Hitler and bring on the golden age; the excitement of conspiring against the evil bosses for the cause of the common people, the naive workers, who were hoodwinked followers of the capitalist press; above all it was a song of youth. Of youth! Of spaghetti dinners and red wine, of the kisses and embraces of many girls and at last the different kisses of little Henrietta Leon, and their love affair that burned through Marxist discussion meetings and picket-line marches and all-night arguments in cafeterias; yes, and through protest rallies on Union Square and in Manhattan Center, and in left-wing night clubs and at the "social significance" cabarets and shows-those gay biting shows that he had helped to stage, and Henny had danced in, when he had still dreamed of being a producer-and after the shows, the late Chinese meals, and then the walk up spangled Broadway to his tiny shabby room in a fleabag hotel on West Forty-eighth Street, just Henny and himself, holding hands and singing with the once-in-a-lifetime joy of young lovers on their way to make familiar and perfect love:
"Says I, Why, Joe, you're ten years dead,' 'I never died,' says he. '1 never died,' says he"
