At the Reunion Buffet Read Online Free PDF

had been told, and it had become for Isabel a link with that distant, romantic world of the house in Mobile with its live oaks and its hanging moss, a house that she associated, oddly enough, with faded fabrics, eau de cologne and mint juleps. Those were, of course, the texture and scents of her grandmother, whom she had met only on a couple of occasions as a young girl.
    “Slavery?” said Jamie.
    “Yes. We’re publishing a paper on contemporary slavery.”
    “But I thought…”
    “…slavery was abolished? It was, but not everywhere. It’s just less overt now.”
    “So no slave markets.”
    Isabel fingered the fabric of her dress again. It was silk, and she wondered who had woven it. She imagined a large factory somewhere far away, with great clattering machines, and people whose faces she could not see. We just cannot imagine any longer where things come from. The label says
China,
but where in China? And in what conditions were they made? She looked down, at the oriental carpet on the bedroom floor, she realized that she was not sure about that either. There were children employed in carpet factories in Asia; they were very small children who sometimes worked long days on the repetitive tasks of weaving. Were they slaves?
    For a moment she experienced a feeling of pervading bleakness: the world was a vale of tears—it always had been. Only civilization stood between us and the horror: civilization in the form of art and architecture, philosophy and courtesy, and all the institutions that persuaded us to treat one another with decency and consideration, and, of course, tolerance. But those institutions were much weaker than we imagined and could be blown away with a puff of cynicism. It was so easy, and so effective: to pour scorn on something was like pouring acid on it. It ate it away.
    Isabel looked at her dress, and for a moment the sheer burden of her thoughts overcame her. She was immensely fortunate—she had this house, this child, this sympathetic man, this refined world of ideas—but the great sea of unhappiness and struggle that was the world was still there, too large to be dealt with, too intractable to submit to our tiny interventions, our metaphorical fingers in the dykes. She could do so little, and when she had done what she could, the anguish of the world would still be there: as insistent and reproachful as when she had started.
    Jamie was at her side. He had risen from the red chair and was standing beside her. He put an arm about her shoulder.
    “My darling Isabel.”
    She half-turned away. She did not want him to see her tears.
    He touched her cheek gently. “What is it? Is it because of what goes on in the world? Is that it?”
    She nodded. It was—to an extent—but not entirely. Their discussion had been the catalyst, but it was so much more than that, and she could not begin to explain it to him, with a party starting downstairs in less than an hour, and hair to be washed, and clothes to be put on, and makeup.
    He put his other arm about her. “You can’t worry about everything, can you?”
    “I know. You’re right.” He had passed her a handkerchief and she took it. “It’s just that I look at the world and realize that all the things that we create for ourselves—the culture, the beliefs, and so on—all of that is just an attempt to protect us from the reality of our situation. Our world is a tiny, insignificant thing in a massive explosion, hurtling wherever it is we’re meant to be hurtling; and we cling to one another on our little raft and try to be brave, but…”
    He looked at her with surprise. “But everybody knows that. We just have to ignore it. We just have to pretend it’s not so. What else can we do?”
    “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
    He took the handkerchief from her and dabbed at her cheeks. “So don’t cry. Because I love you, you know.”
    She looked at him. “I know that.” She paused. She was collecting herself. “I hope those caterers have