Glass Houses(116)

“What class is that?” Donna asked pleasantly.

Phillipa wondered for a moment if there had been sarcasm behind that question, but she dismissed it. Americans didn’t understand sarcasm, never mind indulge in it. Or at least, they didn’t indulge in the subtle kind. Americans had no subtlety. If Donna Moradanyan had wanted to be sarcastic, she’d have laid it on with a trowel.

Phillipa decided to be patient. “The middle class,” she explained. “The middle class is always smug and superior and complaisant. They don’t really care about anything except whether or not they get what they want and whether or not they’re comfortable.”

“I see,” Donna said. “It’s like after Hurricane Katrina hit last year. Lida Kasmanian only took in two families to stay at her house until their places were rebuilt because she didn’t want to get crowded. And Hannah Krekorian only took in this one elderly couple because she only had one spare bedroom. And she didn’t want to sleep on the couch.”

“What are you talking about?” Phillipa demanded.

“I’m talking about Hurricane Katrina,” Donna said.

“I know all about Hurricane Katrina,” Phillipa said. “It was disgraceful. You should all have been ashamed. All those people living in such wretched poverty, and then your own government just leaves them to sit there and die. The shootings, the rapes of children, and no government in sight—”

“Except that that wasn’t true,” Donna said. “It turned out later that the reports were false. There were no rapes of children. And nobody ever shot at a relief helicopter.”

“Of course they did,” Phillipa said. “It’s because the victims were black. America is the most racist country on earth. Everybody knows that. It’s the fault of capitalism, really, and your own isolationism. You don’t know anything about the world. You don’t take an interest in anything besides yourselves.”

“Oh, that’s true,” Donna said. “That’s very true. I mean, every time we send packages to Yekevan, I find myself having to check the Web to find out who all the politicians are. And I can never pronounce Angela Merkel’s name right.”

“You don’t realize what was going on there,” Phillipa said. “You don’t realize what goes on in your own city. The neighborhood I was in was just awful. No, it was more than awful. It was frightening. There were vacant lots. The buildings were decaying. There were no playgrounds. What do you think it must be like for a child to grow up there?”

Donna put what looked like the last flag into what looked like the last cup-cake. Then she got up and took the tray of cupcakes to the kitchen counter. “If you’re talking about the area around Curzon and Divine, I know exactly what it’s like. Our church has a sister-church agreement with the Holy Spirit AME.”

“What’s AME?”

“African Methodist-Episcopal,” Donna said. “It’s a black denomination. I should say an historically black denomination. It’s like a lot of other things these days. It gets mixed.”

“It’s just like Americans,” Phillipa said, “to segregate their churches.”

“Actually, I think that was probably bigger in South Africa than it ever was here,” Donna said. “But the churches aren’t segregated. Did you go into the church? Did you even see it?”

“I don’t go into churches,” Phillipa said, “except for the architecture. America has no architecture.”

Donna got out a big box of cling wrap and began to stretch it over the cup-cakes. “The flags are on toothpicks, so I don’t have to use those. That makes it easier,” she said. “You should have gone into the church. Our youth group went down there one weekend and met their youth group and painted the place and built a choir platform. They have the choir up front, instead of in the back like we do. And then both groups got together and went down to Louisiana last fall to help rebuild a Christian school.”

“Well, God forbid you rebuilt one for atheists,” Phillipa said in exasperation. “You can’t be an American if you aren’t a good Christian ‘soldier.’ And I use the word advisedly. You have to be a soldier.”

“Do you have any idea of what you’re talking about?” Donna asked. “I mean, you go on and on and you make no sense whatsoever. You get everything wrong. You insult practically everybody you talk to, even people like poor Hannah who are only trying to be polite, and then you throw up your hands and say we’re all impossible. I think we’ve been saints, if you want to know the truth. If I hadn’t been brought up to be polite, I would have smacked you one by now.”