The beautiful one and I had been to see two one-act plays about the intricacies of male-female relationships. In one, adult actors played children who behaved like adults in some ways, thereby demonstrating that adults behave like children sometimes; and in the other adult actors played adolescents who behaved like neurotic adults in some ways, thereby demonstrating that neurotic adults behave like adolescents sometimes.
We walked from the theater to Joe’s Shanghai in silence. Silence is unusual for me. She remarked on it.
“You’re awfully quiet,” she said.
“I’m troubled,” I said.
“What’s troubling you?” she asked.
“Oh, let’s see,” I said. “Terrorists have killed nearly two hundred unarmed civilians in Mumbai. Greedy shoppers rushing to grab bargains at a discount store on Long Island have trampled a store employee to death. Many of the people who are said to be the people who ought to know have begun declaring that the world is on the verge of a second Great Depression. And—”
“Just a moment,” she said. “I can’t quite believe that I am hearing this. Aren’t you the man who has told me that I ought to live a life aloof from ‘manunkind’ and its messes?”
“I am. Or I was.”
“What has gone wrong?”
“I’ve lost my composure,” I said.
“But you’re the one who taught me the secret to keeping one’s composure.”
“That’s not quite true. I tried to teach you my secret to keeping one’s composure, but you never really learned it.”
“I didn’t?” she asked, gingerly biting into a soup dumbling and draining the hot liquid from it.
“Not really. You see, my composure came from indifference; I trained myself not to care. Yours came from tolerance; you trained yourself to understand, and you made yourself believe that tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner.”
She burst out laughing. “You must be kidding,” she said. I began eating my hot-and-sour soup.
“This has an excellent broth,” I said. “Not overly thickened, and with a real kick from flavorful Szechuan pepper, not hot oil.”
“Would you pass the scallion pancakes?” she asked.
I would, and I did, and as I did I said, “So I was kidding about your tolerance. We both subscribe to the theory that most people are idiots, but I have begun to worry about myself because I have become a little less indifferent to them and their fate.”
“Why?” she asked.
I sighed. “The presidential election has cursed me with hope,” I said. “I’ve actually begun to expect good things of my fellow creatures, and that, I fear, is sure to lead to disappointment.” |
