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Troublemakers at the Palace
proved short-lived phenomena. Though no one lodged a
protest or reported a misconduct—
none so much as
ventured a rebuke; looks askance and silent shunning spoke for those who
witnessed how “the trio” had insulted a well-liked colleague (Nana, mutely
mortified, retaliating not)
—Xia Xia, Trin,
and Po have disappeared.
Not
the first to come and go sans fond farewell or fanfare, these three,
nonetheless, set an all-time record for brevity, lasting less than a fortnight
before vanishing sight-unseen. True they might have been reassigned to the
household’s huge support staff. Cooks and launderers, guards and groundskeepers,
maintenance crews, valets worked round the clock behind the scenes to ensure that
life flowed “leisurely” (labor of the disadvantaged-many forever fortifying
luxury of the privileged-few), but useful skills seemed lacking among the
impolite triumvirate. Likelier they were reprimanded, fined perhaps, then
discharged. Surely each had forfeited part or all of her million Swiss francs.
Questions about the details, however, reaped inconclusive answers—cloaked by a
shroud of secrecy, their departure unexplained.
Back at her two-headed sculpture, Nana realigns the look-alike busts, presses on chunks of oil clay,
tears off the ears, undercuts the cheekbones,
exaggerates the jowls, aging him whose actual appearance remains enigmatic (since Dad O’Rourke’s
last update—infused with
idioms—offered scant help).
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SRYME@JEANNECLAUDE.ET.NET
#2
ESTER HARRIET BLUMENTHAL, MOTHER OF JULIANA (BLUMENTHAL)
FINK, HAD LITTLE GOOD TO SAY ABOUT HER ERSTWHILE
SON-IN-LAW STUYVESANT (WHEREABOUTS STILL UNKNOWN, BUT
THE TRAIL BEARS FRESHER DROPPINGS). ACCORDING TO MRS.
BLUMENTHAL SENIOR, THE MISMATCHED COUPLE ELOPED ‘AFTER
THAT FLAP AT MIT', ‘GOT HITCHED’ IN LAS VEGAS, HAVING
LEGALLY CHANGED THEIR SURNAMES TO ‘I REALLY DON’T
RECALL', AND PROCEEDED TO SAN FRANCISCO WHERE THEY SET
UP ‘A MAIL-ORDER SOMETHING-OR-OTHER’—BANKROLLED BY THE
NOT-YET-DISINHERITED JULIANA. TWO YEARS LATER, BIG TO
BURSTING WITH CHILD (TWINS, AS IT TURNED OUT), DERELICT
DAUGHTER PETITIONS WEALTHY PARENTS FOR TIDE-US-OVER
FUNDS. BAILOUT DENIED—UNTIL SHE SUES FOR DIVORCE FROM
‘THAT GOOD-FOR-NOTHING SPONGER’. THREE MONTHS AFTER
THAT, DIVORCE PAPERS SIGNED AND SEALED, JULIANA
‘WHAT’S-‘ER-NAME’ IS BACK TO BEING A BLUMENTHAL—PLUS
ONE; STUYVESANT MAKING OFF WITH HALF OF THE COUPLE’S
PROGENY. SINCE THEN, MOTHER AND SON, FROM FATHER AND
SON, HAVE ALLEGEDLY NEVER HEARD.
NEEDLESS TO SAY, I AM BOUND FOR BAGHDAD BY THE BAY.
D. O'ROURKE
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The
nostrils are not right, she feels; Fink must be Caucasian... of average height...
a
slim physique... his auk-like face defined by an outsize nose—great ‘rudder of the
phiz’ by which his Aryan sneer is guided... for Stuyvesant, Nana intuits, is
superior in how he regards himself and in the eyes of intimidated others... people
who are bright, she observes, often seeming conceited... incurring arch
disfavor among those with wits less blessed.
Reaming with her pinkie, she elongates left then right, smoothing either wing to
restore nose-one’s integrity, the process then repeated, nose-two made to look
alike... yet not the same. Father of twins? Identical or fraternal? O’Rourke
failed to mention. Yet Fink himself was a twin, at least in mind if unconfirmed in
body. Curious misapprehension for an alleged man of science. Why invent a sibling?
Loneliness? Discontentment? The quirk of an only child? Or could it be a need to
objectify alter-ego? The man within the woman, in Nana’s case. In Stuyvesant’s
case, the saint within the sadist, good-Samaritan cat surgeon versus
stem-cell-thieving post grad? Too literal. Too simplistic. Something else
involved. Something that compels her hand to render febrile linkage, bridge the
gap between respective skulls maintained sustained by tensions poised in opposite directions—bonds
stretched-taut of varied girth, a maze of wavelength-sharing neurons interlocking selves.
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