1.12 Silk and Money
1.12.1 Alenby and Ada in a Land Glowing with Silk and Money
En route from Roissy to Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises
About 11 am Wednesday 2 April 1987
Following Ada's directions Alenby took back roads in a generally south-easterly direction. As always conscious of safety, he drove slowly and especially carefully at first.
He was amazed to observe that the environs of Paris were far less developed than in U. Where he remembered signs of healthy commercial growth--the whine of aircraft overhead, the rumble and smoke of trucks, the thud of wrecking balls demolishing tall buildings in preparation for erecting even taller ones--he saw mostly empty fields. Barely a few kilometers south-east of the airport the roads were practically free of traffic, and the vehicles on the road were outnumbered by people jogging along the footpaths alongside. Jogging, Ada told him, was a popular diversion of the French, and interest in the sport rose to fever pitch around the time of the annual Tour de France—an event, she gave him to understand, of the pedestrian rather than the velocipedean genre.
A little further away from the capital and from major highways, sealed roads gave way to gravel. This meant slower progress, and an enhanced risk of arriving wherever they were going for lunch later than the canonical 13:00 h. But Alenby was not entirely displeased to hear the crunch of gravel under the tweels. For one thing, on sober consideration, lunch in u seemed less and less an event worth arriving on time for. Secondly, as a professional stunt driver he felt the loss of forward traction on the looser surface was more than balanced the possibility of making safe but spectacular skidding turns.
"A pleasant morning for a drive," he said. "To your country house, Château Mourey, in Chezelet, I believe you said?"
"Yes, we’ll move in tomorrow morning," said Ada. "But for now, Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises—I made a reservation for lunch at a charming place there."
"Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises," Alenby repeated reflectively. "That means—Restaurant Les Dhuits!" He slammed the gear lever into second and accelerated sharply--not quite as sharply as he was wont, but enough so to cause the car to squat for an instant, then spring forward with a satisfying, albeit simulated, snarl of power.
Lunch at the charming Restaurant Les Dhuits--but in u, could the place still be charming?
The memory of his last visit to Les Dhuits hit him with nostalgic force like a punch in the solar plexus: a pair of sardines grilled crisp and brown, side slashes chewy and salty at the edges, and inside steaming ivory.... Today, one might hope for nothing better than a salad moistened with orange juice, and perhaps a piece of roast cauliflower. Love, life, laughter, a platter of fresh fish lightly done--it was all over now. Charming? In u, les Dhuits promised to Alenby about as much charm as a Rotarians' convention.
To ease the pain of that thought he focused on the thing he did well--driving. He set the Mercedes threading rapidly among back roads leading east-south- east towards Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises. From time to time he made a few sharper than necessary turns to check its handling. The verdict: good--good enough to offset the disappointingly sluggish acceleration. He turned off the engine sound—didn’t need it any more, for the subdued rumble of tweels on gravel was enough to put him in rapport with the machine and the road. He would have been happy, but for the absence of a nice lunch in prospect. He glanced at Ada, noted the smile playing about her lips, and he thought: she’s happy, because she doesn’t know any better. Or perhaps another aftershock....
Presently they entered the gently undulating, chalky countryside of southern Champagne—an extended patchwork of beige and off-white fields, some smooth, some striated in cultivation in a way that emphasized their swelling contours, all irregularly mottled in the distance by cloud shadows. Ada’s gaze swept the unfolding scene. "Ah, Alenby," she burst out, "the French countryside! A land glowing with silk and money."
"Excuse me—glowing? Don’t you mean flowing? Flowing with milk and—?"
Ada clapped her hands to her ears. "Please, Alenby—the ancient scribes used crude expressions referring to starving nomads’ use of animal and insect exudates as food, and of course we must use those terms in a clinical or legal setting, but nowadays u-people prefer the aesthetically pleasing version!"
"Be that as it may, what would you like me to say instead of milk?"
"The accepted euphemism is 'pus,' but--go ahead, say 'milk' if you must."
"Yes, well the fact is that milk is nature's perfect food. Vitamin D fortified, lactose-free, stuffed with high-quality protein. Plus calcium for strong bones and teeth." Noticing that Ada was following him with open-mouthed attention, (incidentally revealing a complete set of unblemished teeth) he felt a teaching moment was at hand. Now, it seemed, was the time to sweep away her foolish dietary misconceptions all in one go!
"Actually," said Alenby, "I don’t see how this nutrition business has done you u-people much good. Where is everybody? Where is the bustle of commerce, the laughing throng en route to lunch? I see only a few emaciated runners padding along dejectedly by the roadside. Is u suffering the aftermath of famine or epidemic? Or a crippling war—World War II, perhaps?"
"Oh, nothing like that," Ada replied. "Certainly not World War II, as you call it. They were going to have a war, but they called it off. The leaders of the major European powers—Diana Mosley of the United Queendom, France’s Simone de Beauvoir, Eva Braun from Germany—they were in Paris for the 1939 Chanel show and happened to run into each other at Deux Magots. From all accounts the war thing came up over coffee and carob banana ices with petits fours of dehydrated sunflower sprouts, dates, raisins and lemon zest, and it didn’t seem such a good idea after all—the war, I mean."
Alenby half-listened to her going on in that vein, citing Simone Weil and other bluestockings on the evils of bloodshed, but his thoughts remained in Café Deux Magots—sunflower sprouts, really? Until Ada continued:
"As for why u-people are so comparatively few, as you say, in post-prohibition America the MA'AM leadership was deeply concerned about the threat of shortages and other problems that might follow from unchecked population growth, and so of course were the Europeans and all the other civilized—"
"Shortage of food, and so on and so forth? "
"Space. Shortages of space."
"Parking space, I suppose you mean. Well, I can relate to that. I had a devil of a time once, trying to find a spot near Au Trou Gascon in the 12th--"
"Space, period. Projections based on mid-1920s demographics indicated a population catastrophe before 2150--Earth full, jam packed, complet--"
"Complet, Alenby echoed, "that's how it was. By the time I found a place they'd canceled my reservation...hang on, are you trying to give that old loopy liberal line about the population bomb are you?"
"Yes, it was with that in mind that MA'AMs decided to bring population growth under control by promoting polyandry for mothers, and introducing incentives sufficiently munificent to make polyandrous motherhood an attractive career option--an option open only to those completing the requirements of the Diploma of Motherhood. Then, after the masculinists' testosterone-infused grumbling died down, they pushed through a funded mandate."
Polyandry, Alenby thought, just another tiresome shock word designed to take a rise out of one. Like other fads--gooseberries with steak tartar, for instance--the whole thing would eventually fade away of its own accord....
Interpreting Alenby's silence as evidence of rapt attention, Ada expanded on the practice of polyandry. To be a Mother Diplomate, she explained, a woman had to show the mental and physical stamina needed for this vital role in society. And to cut the risk of dimensionally disadvantaged progeny, she had to be short and thin. Having satisfied all requirements, including the teaching know-how to guide their kids K through tenth at home schooling and the deep understanding of human nutrition required to invest "Eat your kale!" with indisputable authority, a woman takes the necessary minimum number of short, thin husbands—two in some states, three in others, four in Massachusetts—and devotes herself to producing and educating offspring.
"And the non-mothers," said Alenby, "I suppose they gather in twittering covens and...." Run everything, he was about to say, but it seemed too absurd. Women running things instead of men? The likes of Eva Braun in charge of a powerful nation? Unsafe, surely.
"The non-mothers take lovers," said Ada, briefly caressing her Compulocket, "Or if pressed for time, they simply drop in at a neighborhood sex orgy. But in the main they focus on bringing home the daikon. Women are prominent in all walks of life, and they excel in people-friendly caring professions: law, corporate management, politics."
She explained that girl students, being generally more attentive than boys, benefit more from their education and so emerge better fitted for positions of leadership. "Of course," she added, "not all girls excel. Inevitably, some mothers backslide into substance-related criminality, and in those cases their daughters are often plagued by PMS and other consequences of faulty diet."
She went on in that vein, on one hand this and on the other hand that, until Alenby's attention faded to the level he was apt to accord left-leaning liberal blatherers in general. He couldn’t explain his objections to female leadership, and didn't care to try. It was quite simply self-evident that the weaker sex wasn't up to it. That's why they are always called the weaker sex, after all....
They were getting close to Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises. Soon, he thought, they would skirting the hill upon whose summit he recalled seeing the mighty Cross of Lorraine that commemorated the epic leadership of Charles de Gaulle.
Yes, the hill was there, all right, just as he remembered. But atop it, no Cross of Lorraine. No symbol of the glory of France. Nothing.
"Not quite nothing," said Ada. "There’s a cute little children’s playground up there, with a funicular leading up to it. It commemorates the sensitive, people-friendly intellectual leadership of Simone de Beauvoir."
Alenby felt a tension attack coming on. Quickly he reviewed his options and came to a decision: Paxitin—the medication guaranteed to blank anxiety and replace it with resignation. He resolved to take a couple of tablets at the first opportunity.
1.12.2: Cleopatra Kirwan Prepares to meet Dr Ada Lynch
Restaurant les Dhuits, Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises
12 noon Wednesday 2 April 1987
Standing alert at her post in the as-yet vacant dining room, smartly turned out in black dress and white starched cap and apron, Cleo appeared the epitome of neatness and efficiency in her role as any French waitress. No casual observer would have guessed that she was only now about to make her debut in that capacity. Yet the petite Bennett-High senior had plenty of misgivings.
Sure, she had served her apprenticeship and passed the tests--all on-line admittedly. And she’d made all the required lifestyle adjustments, like wearing dorky black shiny shoes with the strap over instead of sneakers, and leaving off the tangerine-colored hair ribbon that went so well with her toasted-pumpernickel complexion. But when the time came, would she remember all the dopey French traditions? Like the special green-stemmed goblet for Alsace wines, and the specially-shaped knife for seaweed and and other seafood dishes. And no coming up with a friendly "hi" or "bonjour" or whatever—that was a real no-no!
But Cleo’s main concern was not the waitress thing. It was how to approach the Old Fart’s--correction, subject's--daughter, Dr Ada Lynch. That's if she really is his daughter, of course. Better not try to get anything on the subject right away. Like it says in the "Getting the Facts" chapter of the Bennett High text "Beginning Investigative Journalism," first get everything on a friendly basis with your informant. Flatter her, seek her advice etc, all the while pretending you are totally dumb bunny. Then, when the time is good and ripe, sneak in a subtle probe of the central question: Is he a milkic? The very idea of a move so impertinent, yet vital to her enterprise, set her heart pounding.
Cleo heard her employer calling for her. The Old Sow wanted her to set out a reservation card, special customer.
"Je viens, madame!" she responded, starting briskly towards her employer's office. She put a little extra oomph into her enunciation, so that her voice rang in the empty restaurant with the clarity of struck crystal. Like the various other languages in which she was fluent, Cleo’s French was well ahead of the basic foreign-language proficiency level to be reached after the standard ten years of home plus school instruction. And in the case of French, a summer study program on Ile Saint-Pierre had put a special gloss on her pronunciation.
The reservation card now in Cleo’s hand jumped in time with her pulse, but she made out the name clearly enough: Yes, it was Dr Ada Lynch, two covers. Special-customer info to be momorized: Dr Lynch a frequent visitor to France always with a different gentleman; an apparent nymphomaniac, may demand special arrangements....
Having not yet attained puberty, Cindy lacked any empathetic feeling for the special arrangements her employer had in mind. But with her knowledge of human mating behavior gleaned from attentive readings of the works of that redoubtable peintre de l’âme féminine, Colette, she felt pretty sure she could handle the lady's requirements.