"How would you like to work in a company like that?" he asked
speculatively.
"I don't really know," I said.
* * * * *
He sat up straighter and his voice got brisk. "Well, all fantasy
aside, how'd you like to work in this company?" He asked, lightly
slapping my ankle. "On the stage, I mean. Sid thinks you're ready for
some of the smaller parts. In fact, he asked me to put it to you. He
thinks you never take him seriously."
"Pardon me while I gasp and glow," I said. Then, "Oh Marty, I can't
really imagine myself doing the tiniest part."
"Me neither, eight months ago," he said. "Now, look. Lady Macbeth."
"But Marty," I said, reaching for his finger again, "you haven't
answered my question. About whether it's true."
"Oh that!" he said with a laugh, switching his hand to the other side.
"Ask me something else."
"Okay," I said, "why am I bugged on the number eight? Because I'm
permanently behind a private 8-ball?"
"Eight's a number with many properties," he said, suddenly as intently
serious as he usually is. "The corners of a cube."
"You mean I'm a square?" I said. "Or just a brick? You know, 'She's a
brick.'"
"But eight's most curious property," he continued with a frown, "is
that lying on its side it signifies infinity. So eight erect is
really--" and suddenly his made-up, naturally solemn face got a great
glow of inspiration and devotion--"Infinity Arisen!"
Well, I don't know. You meet quite a few people in the theater who
are bats on numerology, they use it to pick stage-names. But I'd never
have guessed it of Martin. He always struck me as the skeptical,
cynical type.
"I had another idea about eight," I said hesitatingly. "Spiders. That
8-legged asterisk on Miss Nefer's forehead--" I suppressed a shudder.
"You don't like her, do you?" he stated.
"I'm afraid of her," I said.
"You shouldn't be. She's a very great woman and tonight she's playing
an infinitely more difficult part than I am. No, Greta," he went on as
I started to protest, "believe me, you don't understand anything about
it at this moment. Just as you don't understand about spiders, fearing
them. They're the first to climb the rigging and to climb ashore too.
They're the web-weavers, the line-throwers, the connectors, Siva and
Kali united in love. They're the double mandala, the beginning and the
end, infinity mustered and on the march--"
"They're also on my New York screen!" I squeaked, shrinking back
across the cot a little and pointing at a tiny glinting
silver-and-black thing mounting below my Willy-ball.
Martin gently caught its line on his finger and lifted it very close
to his face. "Eight eyes too," he told me. Then, "Poor little god," he
said and put it back.
"Marty? Marty?" Sid's desperate stage-whisper rasped the length of the
dressing room.