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The war that was about to be did not announce itself in signs at St. Cloud's; both the familiar and the unfamiliar were muted there by ritual and by custom. A pregnancy terminated in a birth or in an abortion; an orphan was adopted or was waiting to be adopted. When there was a dry and snowless cold, the loose sawdust irritated the eyes and the noses and the throats of St. Cloud's; only briefly, when the snow lay newly fallen, was the sawdust gone from the air. When there was a thaw, the snow melted down and the matted sawdust smelled like wet fur; when there was a freeze, the sawdust reappeared--dry again, somehow on top of the old snow--and again the eyes itched, the noses ran, and the throats could never quite clear themselves of it.
"Let us be happy for Smoky Fields," Dr. Larch announced in the boys' division. "Smoky Fields has found a family. Good night, Smoky."
"Good night, Thmoky!" said David Copperfield.
"G'night!" young Steerforth cried.
Good night, you little food hoarder, Nurse Angela thought. Whoever took him, she knew, would soon learn to lock the refrigerator.
In the December morning, at the window where Melony once allowed the world to pass both with and without comment, Mary Agnes Cork watched the women walking uphill from the train station. They don't look pregnant, Mary Agnes thought.
On the bleak hill where Wally Worthington once imagined apple trees, young Copperfield attempted to steer a cardboard carton through the first, wet snow. The carton had once contained four hundred sterile vulval pads; Copperfield knew this because he had unpacked the carton--and he had placed young Steerforth in the carton, at the bottom of the hill. Near the top, he was beginning to realize his mistake. Not only had dragging Steerforth uphill been difficult, but also the boy's weight--in addition to the wetness of the snow--had turned the bottom of the carton soggy. Copperfield wondered if his make-do sled would even slide--if he ever managed to get the mess to the top.
"Good night, Smoky!" Steerforth was singing.
"Thut up, thupid," David Copperfield said.
Dr. Larch was very tired. He was resting in the dispensary. The gray, winter light turned the white walls gray and for a moment Larch wondered what time of day it was--and what time of year. From now on, he was thinking, let everything I do be for a reason. Let me make no wasted moves.
In his mind's eye he saw the correct angle at which the vaginal speculum allowed him a perfect view of the cervix. Whose cervix? he wondered. Even in his ether sleep the thumb and index finger of his right hand tightened the screw that held the jaws of the speculum in place, and he saw the astonishing blondness of the little clump of pubic hair caught in the hairs of his own wrist. It was so blond he had nearly missed seeing it against his own pale skin. When he shook his wrist, the little clump was so light that it floated in the air. In his ether swoon his left hand reached for it, just missing it. Oh yes--her cervix, thought Wilbur Larch. What was her name?
"She has a toy name," Larch said aloud. "Candy!" he remembered. Then he laughed. Nurse Edna, passing the dispensary, held her breath and listened to the laughter. But even when she didn't breathe, the fumes made her old eyes water. That and the sawdust. That and the orphans--some of them made her eyes water, too.
She opened the door at th
e hospital entrance to let some fresh air into the hall. On the hill she watched a cardboard carton make an unsteady descent; she knew that sterile vulval pads had been in the carton, but she wasn't sure what was in the carton now. Something heavy, because the carton's descent was clumsy and irregular. At times it picked up speed, sliding almost smoothly, but always some rock or bare patch in the slushy snow would jar it off-course and slow it down. The first small body to roll out of the carton and make its way downhill was Steerforth's; she recognized his overlarge mittens and the ski hat that always covered his eyes. For a while he tumbled almost as fast as the carton, but a large patch of bare, frozen ground finally stopped him. Nurse Edna watched him climb back uphill for one of his mittens.
The second, larger body to be propelled from the carton was obviously David Copperfield's; he rolled free with a large, soggy piece of the carton in both his hands. The carton appeared to disintegrate in flight.
"Thit!" Copperfield cried. At least, Nurse Edna thought, young Copperfield's profanities were improved by his lisp.
"Close that door," said Dr. Larch, in the hall behind Nurse Edna.
"I was just trying to get some fresh air," Nurse Edna said pointedly.
"You could have fooled me," said Wilbur Larch. "I thought you were trying to freeze the unborn."
Maybe that will be the way of the future, Nurse Edna thought--wondering what future ways there would be.
In the December swimming pool the raft that Senior Worthington used to ride still floated, windblown from one end of the pool to the other, breaking up the lacy fringes of ice that formed and reformed around the edges. Olive and Homer had drained out a third of the pool's water, to leave room for rainfall and snow melt.
Senior's cold raft, only partially deflated by the falling temperature, still charged around the swimming pool like a riderless horse; it galloped wherever the wind urged it. Every day Olive watched the raft out the kitchen window, and Homer wondered when she would suggest getting rid of it.
One weekend Candy came home from Camden, and Homer's confusion regarding what he should do about her mounted. Friday was a bad, indecisive day. He went early to Senior Biology, hoping to persuade Mr. Hood either to let him have his own rabbit for dissection or to assign him a lab partner other than that boy Bucky. Bucky managed to mangle the rabbit's innards whenever he handled them, and Homer found the oaf's constant fixation with everything's reproductive system both silly and maddening. Bucky had lately seized on the fact that marsupials have paired vaginas.
"Twin twats! Can you believe it?" Bucky asked Homer.
"Right," said Homer Wells.
"Is that all you can say?" Bucky asked. "Don't you get it? If you was a hamster, you could fuck another hamster with your buddy!"
"Why would I want to do that?" Homer asked.
"Two cunts!" Bucky said enthusiastically. "You got no imagination."
"I doubt that even the hamsters are interested in what you suggest," said Homer Wells.
"That's what I mean, stupid," Bucky said. "What a waste--to give two twats to a hamster! You ever seen 'em run on them little wheels? They're crazy! Wouldn't you be crazy if you knew the girl of your dreams had two twats and she still wasn't interested?"
