Ave Maria, as a matter of fact.
9
Tom Alden--Tom-the-doctor--had been thinking about me, off and on, for
more than thirty hours, now.
He is the kind of person whose thoughts give birth more to inquiry than
opinion.
We went to a Longchamps for dinner--the gold and vermilion decorations
made bearable by air conditioning. Traffic was light; only a few people
were about--people going tiredly in the heat-choked night. After
dinner, we rode back in a cab to the Astolat and strolled over to the
Park where we sat together on the Mall, listening to the concert.
Thousands of people had spread out newspapers in the lamplit dusk and
lay upon them, asleep, talking, making love. The police had suspended
the bans that one night. Tenements and penthouses were ovens; their
refugees gasped on the grass. Kids played in the fountains and no one
interfered. The city itself had an evacuated feeling; all who were able
had fled the heat wave and the rest were in parks, in cool restaurants,
or in the movie theaters. Stars shone hazily above the trees and the
stagy skyscrapers. Music, coming down the Mall, was distorted by
invisible eddies that still rose from the sun-baked cement; it soared
and fell and wobbled through the furnace atmosphere.
Tom, as I said, is given to inquiry. This is not surprising in a man
who practices several sciences. If we were old friends, we were also
dedicated, in different ways, to the examination of all that surrounded
ourselves and each other. Our sensibilities were tuned to the fact;
they lacked the common diffidences of most such attachments.
"How's it going?" That was his first question, when he arrived at my
hotel rooms.
"Okay."
He put down the black bag that lies within easy reach of his whole life.
"Jittery?"
"Not that I know of."
"Tell Ricky?"
"No."
"How is she?"
"All cured--we hope."