The Corrections

coordinator Suzy Ghosh asked the table in a voice like hair in a shampoo commercial.
    “We didn’t sink last night, if that’s what you mean,” said Sylvia Roth.
    The Norwegians quickly monopolized Suzy with a complicated inquiry regarding lap swimming in the larger of the Gunnar Myrdal ’s pools.
    “Well, well, Signe,” Mr. Söderblad remarked to his wife at an indiscreet volume, “this is indeed a great surprise. The Nygrens have a lengthy question for Miss Ghosh this morning.”
    “Yes, Stig, they do always seem to have a lengthy question, don’t they? They are very thorough people, our Nygrens.”
    Ted Roth spun half a grapefruit like a potter, stripping out its flesh. “The story of carbon,” he said, “is the story of the planet. You’re familiar with the greenhouse effect?”
    “It’s triple tax-free,” Enid said.
    Alfred nodded. “I am familiar with the greenhouse effect.”
    “You have to actually physically clip the coupons, which sometimes I forget,” Enid said.
    “The earth was very hot four billion years ago,” said Dr. Roth. “The atmosphere was unbreathable. Methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide.”
    “Of course at our age income matters more than growth.”
    “Nature hadn’t learned to break down cellulose. When a tree fell, it lay on the ground and got buried by the next tree that fell. This was the Carboniferous. The earth a lush riot.And in the course of millions and millions of years of trees falling on trees, almost all the carbon got taken from the air and buried underground. And there it stayed until yesterday, geologically speaking.”
    “Lap swimming, Signe. Do you suppose that this is similar to lap dancing?”
    “Some people are disgusting,” said Mrs. Nygren.
    “What happens to a log that falls today is that funguses and microbes digest it, and all the carbon goes back into the sky. There can never be another Carboniferous. Ever. Because you can’t ask Nature to unlearn how to biodegrade cellulose.”
    “It’s called Orfic Midland now,” Enid said.
    “Mammals came along when the world cooled off. Frost on the pumpkin. Furry things in dens. But now we have a very clever mammal that’s taking all the carbon from underground and putting it back into the atmosphere.”
    “I think we own some Orfic Midland ourselves,” Sylvia said.
    “As a matter of fact,” Per Nygren said, “we, too, own Orfic Midland.”
    “Per would know,” said Mrs. Nygren.
    “I daresay he would,” said Mr. Söderblad.
    “Once we burn up all the coal and oil and gas,” said Dr. Roth, “we’ll have an antique atmosphere. A hot, nasty atmosphere that no one’s seen for three hundred million years. Once we’ve let the carbon genie out of its lithic bottle.”
    “Norway has superb retirement benefits, hm, but I also supplement my national coverage with a private fund. Per checks the price of each stock in the fund every morning. There are quite a number of American stocks. How many, Per?”
    “Forty-six at present,” Per Nygren said. “If I am not mistaken, ‘Orfic’ is an acronym for the Oak Ridge FiduciaryInvestment Corporation. The stock has maintained its value quite well and pays a handsome dividend.”
    “Fascinating,” said Mr. Söderblad. “Where is my coffee?”
    “But, Stig, do you know,” said Signe Söderblad, “I am quite sure we also have this stock, Orfic Midland.”
    “We own a great many stocks. I can’t remember every name. At the same time, too, the print in the newspaper is very tiny.”
    “The moral of the story is don’t recycle plastic. Send your plastic to a landfill. Get that carbon underground.”
    “If it had been up to Al, we’d still have every penny in passbook savings.”
    “Bury it, bury it. Stopper the genie in the bottle.”
    “I happen to have an eye condition that makes it painful for me to read,” said Mr. Söderblad.
    “Oh, really?” said Mrs. Nygren acidly. “What is the medical name of this condition?”
    “I like a cool autumn day,” said Dr. Roth.
    “Then again,” said Mrs. Nygren, “I suppose that to learn the condition’s name would itself necessitate painful reading.”
    “This is a small planet.”
    “There is lazy eye, of course, but to have two lazy eyes at once—”
    “That is not really possible,” said Mr. Nygren. “The ‘lazy eye’ syndrome, or amblyopia, is a condition in which one eye assumes the work of the other. Therefore, if one eye is lazy, the other is by