The Thanatos Syndrome

heartily.
    â€œWell?”
    â€œDummy, we’ve got to go to the awards dinner in thirty minutes.”
    â€œThis will only take fifteen.”
    â€œOh, for—! That’s Chandra’s bedroom now.”
    â€œChandra won’t mind. Do you remember the Sears Best?” Sears Best was a king-size mattress on a big brass bedstead.
    â€œWhat? Oh, I certainly do. And it certainly was!”
    I look at her. She is both hearty and preoccupied. She taps her tooth.
    â€œDo you remember standing at the sink and being approached from behind?”
    â€œWhat? Oh.” She blushes. For half a second I could swear she remembered love in the afternoon and was on the very point of heading for Sears Best. But she frowns, looks at her watch, makes her clucking sound. “Oh, God, I forgot. I have to call Sheri Comeaux about tonight. What—a—pain!”
    â€œI don’t think I can make it.”
    â€œWhy the hell not?” Her fists are on her hips.
    â€œI’m not much for school functions—” I begin.
    â€œWell, hear this. You damn well better be. This happens to be important to Tommy and for his future. It just so happens that Tommy is getting an award for summer soccer, the award, and that he is Olympic material. It also just so happens that if Tommy and Margaret are going to Belle Ame Academy, an honor in itself, you had damn well better show some interest, because Van is already breaking the rules taking them this late.”
    And so on. Instead of letting me lay her properly on a kingsize bed, she picks a king-size argument. Van Dorn, it seems, has started up a private school at Belle Ame on the English model, with tutors, proctors, forms, and suchlike. Ellen has yanked Tommy and Margaret out of St. Michael’s—it’s possible because school has just started. It’s all right with me, I’ve already agreed, but for some reason she wants to pick a religious argument. This is, in a sense, funny. It is as if I were still a Catholic and she a Presbyterian, when in fact I am only a Catholic in the remotest sense of the word—I haven’t given religion two thoughts or been to Mass for years, except when Rinaldo said Mass on the Gulf Coast, and then I went because it was a chance to get out of the clink—and Ellen is now an Episcopalian. She’s become one of those Southern Anglicans who dislike Catholics—Romans, she calls them—and love all things English.
    I won’t argue. She can send them to Eton if she likes. Mainly I’m glad to have her back. Very well, I’ll go to the awards dinner. There’s something else on my mind. But my acquiescence only makes her angrier.
    â€œAnd not only that,” she says, fists still on hips.
    â€œYes?” I say, thinking how nice it would be, what with all this anger, flushed face, flashing eyes, if—and in fact say as much. “It certainly would be nice if we could fight it out in there.”
    â€œAnd not only that,” she repeats.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œFor Tommy’s sake, you better remember you promised to take Van fishing.”
    â€œI remember,” I say gloomily.
    â€œAll right.” Again she looks me up and down, me in my Bruno Hauptmann suit. “And get dressed, for heaven’s sake. And keep in mind about Van.”
    What I keep in mind is her voluptuousness and distractedness. It is odd. At the height of her anger she’s both voluptuous and distracted, preoccupied by something. Her eyes do not quite focus on me.

9. THE AWARDS BANQUET is shorter and less painful than I had feared. I manage not to drink. What is surprising is that Ellen does—does drink—something she seldom did, and not merely drink but in the end gets so drunk I have to take her home. Sheri Comeaux explains why. Van Dorn let her down, did not invite her to the North Americans at Fresno.
    John Van Dorn is doing a very graceful job emceeing the banquet and passing out trophies. He is talking about the summer soccer camp and plans for the soccer “program” during the academic year at Belle Ame. Afterward he passes out trophies. When he hands Tommy his trophy, a gold-colored statuette, he doesn’t let go, so there are the two of them holding the trophy while Van Dorn speaks. Tommy is embarrassed. He doesn’t know whether to keep holding on to the trophy or what to do with his eyes.
    â€œI have one little suggestion for you moms and dads,”