The Merchants of Zion Read Online Free PDF Page B

buck. Elly loved them though, and squealed with delight every time Anne outwitted the adults or fixed one of their mistakes.
    After two chapters we moved on to watching TV on the behemoth screens the Felkins had built into the living room wall. Helen worried about it retarding Elly's mental development, but she and Robert were unable to give up their generation's greatest vice.
    We watched a show where giant cartoon animals wandered across the screen looking cute. I had no idea what was going on, and Elly was too absorbed by it to fill me in. Skittles jumped on the couch and settled behind Elly's head.
    Her bedtime was at eight, and she was so excited about staying up late that she wore herself out in less than an hour. She fell asleep around eight-thirty. I changed the channel to Common Sense Premium Plus Gold News, the ad-free, subscription-only, twenty-four hour news network. They were replaying a press conference from earlier in the day. The press secretary was assuring reporters that the anti-terrorism efforts in Mexico were working and the transitional government was in no danger of collapsing. Liberty Bell's CEO was meeting with the President and Congress to develop the most efficient plan for the next stage of Operation Empire for Liberty. Things must be pretty bad, I thought, if the administration was bothering to deny anything. Not that I cared.
    I'd been born ten years too late to understand the allure of television, and I flipped through the channels, was unable to find anything of interest, and turned it off. As I was about to carry Elly to bed Skittles heard someone at the door. His barking woke up Elly, who ran to the front hall yelling, “Mommy!”
    It had begun raining, and Helen shook off her umbrella before stepping inside. She was closer to fifty now than forty, and the stress piled on over the course of her life manifested itself in the crow's feet clustered around her gray eyes. She had recently dyed her hair—naturally salt-and-pepper—jet black. “You'd think I was in broadcasting,” she'd told me with a sarcastic laugh. “Image is everything.”
    She was still attractive, but not like when she'd been a young mother. In the picture she was Copacabana in July, now she was an autumnal fjord. Looking into her eyes too long was like peering off a cliff into dark water. It's a terrible, impossible idea—you'll be swallowed in sorrow, you'll never see light again—but the impulse is powerful. Thinking, before the plunge “what's one step, really?”
    “Hi Helen,” I said.
    “Hi Cliff, thank you for being so patient,” she said, taking my hand and smiling.
    “Mommy, mommy,” said Elly, tugging at her mother's shirt.
    “Yes, darling?”
    “Cliff taught me a new word today.”
    “Is that right? What was it?” I froze, wondering which of the wonderful new word she would pick.
    “Eeerie-sponsible.”
    “What's it mean darling?”
    “It means you don't do what people tell you. I wanna be eeerie-sponsible when I grow up so I can have lotsa fun.”
    “I certainly hope not,” she kissed Elly's forehead.
    “She fell asleep on the couch. I was about to take her upstairs,” I said.
    “That's fine. I'll put her to bed, then I have to work a while longer. You're welcome to stay if you like. I can put on a pot of coffee.”
    “I appreciate the offer, but I need to get back home. A friend of mine fell out of the sky and now he's staying... um it's a long story. I'll tell you all about it later.”
    “All right. Take care,” she murmured.
    “Bye Helen. Bye Elly.”
    “Bye-bye.”
     
    * * *
     
    Dimitri was waiting for me on the couch/James's bed.
    “What's up?” I asked.
    “What the fuck do you think you're doing?” he fumed.
    “I have no idea what you're talking about”
    “You're so funny.”
    “It'll only be for a little while.”
    “Do you remember what I said would happen if I saw James again?”
    “You'd throw him out of a window. Death by defenestration. I don't think the