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favorite breakfast—eggs in hell, in a special cup, with Worcestershire. They’ll watch the small disaster unfold again on television, listen to the hysterical analysis and exchange their usual remarks. God looks forward to it all. “Home” is a gift presented to him daily by his wife, and God receives such gifts humbly, like alms.

    The rubber tree, oppressed these seventy years by the roof, has grown laterally, moving toward the south-facing windows, gracefully bending down and down, its grayish trunk segmented like a worm. The woody fibers where the trunk and branches meet the pointed leaves occasionally crack open and bleed sap down the banister. God’s wife, Madeline, stands knifelike at the head of the stairs, one hand resting on the balustrade, the other gripping the pineapple knob. Her attitude is confrontational; her body has become a wall. She has, he sees, been working herself up to this. Her eyes address him with the tense attention of a game animal. (And he is a
tiger
—though a tired old bloody one.)
    He will kiss her. Gamely he mounts the stairs, reaches for her pale blue robe. She emits a feral roar and pushes him away with one hand at the center of his chest; the other hand grips the pineapple post. His hands, now empty, grasp at air.
    At the cocktail hour, they watch the news on television. Women are enraged about the Miss America pageant, the war and the fascist dictatorship of the nation. Using tactics developed by the Vietcong, they have blown up a trash can in protest, injuring several people. God brings forward the fugitive blue coat as evidence: He was there. Madeline clucks sympathetically but does not, she says, understand him. She sets plates on the table and drops her own bomb. Tonight, after they eat, she will leave him. She stands up straight as a knife in her dowdy town clothes. Her reading glasses hang poised for action in the neck of her jersey; her eyes shine. Her leather handbag on the kitchen counter looks greased and ready to run. A suitcase—from a set that belonged to God’s father—stands by the front door.
    She gives him a frozen bag of peas to dull the ache in his head, mixes him a drink and pours a small portion for herself. She has been to her GP, come home and packed a bag.
    “I had a thorough checkup,” she tells him. “It turns out I’m healthier than I thought. Goddard, I could live twenty more years! I drove home and realized how unhappy I am. Twenty more years—I thought I’d have to kill myself.
    “This can’t surprise you,” she tells him, doling out chicken pie and boiled peas. Yet God feels surprised.
    “I don’t regret my marriage,” she says bitterly.
“Je ne regrette rien.”
    “I’m glad of that,” he begins.
    “I’d like to live for myself. But that’s not all. I’m too angry right now to be married to a man like you. You have not been faithful to me. You gave me
crabs.
”
    God cannot think how to dignify a remark like this.
    “Perhaps you think I’m ridiculous,” she says. “But I’m not. Let’s not get into the blame game; let’s not put labels on each other. You aren’t a cad. I’m not a—a
cunt.
”
    He finds he can’t eat. God puts down his fork and wipes his mouth with a napkin. She has been his amanuensis, his right hand, an efficient machine, deciphering and typing up his pieces for the
Head’s Journal
, delivering his opinions to the newspaper. For years she has thrown herself into his work, typing, repairing, introducing new errors and ideas, refinements and subtleties. She helped with his great work to date, a defense of Joseph Conrad, and he dedicated this volume to her: “For my Bride, who kept the home fires burning.” She has been useful to him, at least until the middle years, when she sometimes became troubled and drank in the daytime or slept in the garden, or went around the house foaming at the mouth. She pulled out some of her hair, complained of voices in her head. He was, she said then, an exhausting