“Well, other countries then. Everyone came to America from Europe and places. Why don’t some of them go back?”
“Because if you think you got problems you should see the other guy. All of England is just one big city and I saw on TV where the last Tory got shot defending the last grouse woods when they came to plow it up. Or you want to go to Russia maybe? Or China? They been having a border war for fifteen years now, which is one way of keeping the population down-but you’re draft age and they draft girls there so you wouldn’t like that. Denmark maybe. Life is great there if you can get in, at least they eat regular, but they got a concrete wall right across Jutland and beach guards who shoot on sight because so many starving people keep trying to break into the promised land. No, maybe we got no paradise here, but it’s at least livable. I got to run up the batteries.”
“It’s not fair, I still say that.”
“What’s fair?” Sol smiled at her. “Relax. You got your youth, you got your looks, you’re eating and drinking regular. So what’s your complaint?”
“Nothing, really.” She smiled back at him. “It’s just that I get so angry seeing Andy working all the time, taking care of people and they don’t even know it or care.”
“Gratitude you can’t expect, a salary you can. It’s a job.”
Sol dragged out the wheelless bicycle and hooked up the wires from the generator to the ranked batteries on top of the refrigerator. Shirl pulled a chair over to the window and opened her manicure set on the sill. Behind her the creaking moan of the generator rose to a high-pitched whine. She pushed at her cuticle with the orange stick. It was a nice day, sunny but not hot, and it promised to be a nice fall. There was the trouble with the water, but that would straighten out. She frowned a little as she looked out across the roofs and high buildings, only half aware of the endless background roar of the city, cut through by the nearby shrieks of children.
Outside of this business with the water, everything was all right. But it was funny: even though she knew that things were all right, she still had this little knot of tension, a nagging feeling of worry that just wouldn’t go away.
PART TWO
1
“Everyone says this is the coldest October ever, I never seen a colder one. And the rain too, never hard enough to fill the reservoy or anything, but just enough to make you wet so you feel colder. Ain’t that right?”
Shirl nodded, hardly listening to the words, but aware by the rising intonation of the woman’s voice that a question had been asked. The line moved forward and she shuffled a few steps behind the woman who had been speaking—a shapeless bundle of heavy clothing covered with a torn plastic raincoat, with a cord tied about her middle so that she resembled a lumpy sack. Not that I look much better, Shirl thought, tugging the fold of blanket farther over her head to keep out the persistent drizzle. It wouldn’t be much longer now, there were only a few dozen people ahead, but it had taken a lot more time than she thought it would; it was almost dark. A light came on over the tank car, glinting off its black sides and lighting up the slowly falling curtain of rain. The line moved again and the woman ahead of Shirl waddled forward, pulling the child after her, a bundle as wrapped and shapeless as its mother, its face hidden by a knotted scarf, that produced an almost constant whimpering.
“Stop that,” the woman said. She turned to Shirl, her puffy face a red lumpiness around the dark opening of her almost toothless mouth. “He’s crying because he’s been to see the doc, thinks he’s sick but it’s only the kwash.” She held up the child’s swollen, ballooning hand. “You can tell when they swell up and get the black spots on the knees. Had to sit two weeks in the Bellevue clinic to see a doc who told me what I knew already. But that’s the only way you get him to sign the slip. Got a peanut-butter ration that way. My old man loves the stuff. You live on my block, don’t you? I think I seen you there?”
“Twenty-sixth Street,” Shirl said, taking the cap off the jerry can and putting it into her coat pocket. She felt chilled through and was sure she was catching a cold.
“That’s right, I knew it was you. Stick around and wait for me, we’ll walk back together. It’s getting late and plenty of punks would like to grab the water, they can always sell it. Mrs. Ramirez in my building, she’s a spic but she’s all right, you know, her family been in the building since the World War Two, she got a black eye so swole up she can’t see through it and two teeth knocked out. Some punk got her with a club and took her water away.”