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that wink, which he had meant to be just good fun.
    Nada turned away. She went to the doorway of a room and stood there, outraged. Or she believed she should be outraged and was waiting for her rage to come. Her shoulders beneath the fine black cloth ofthat coat, weighed down by the filmy collar of mink, grew straight and youthful with anger.
    “The economy is devious,” Father was lecturing Mr. Hansom, with a florid, overdone camaraderie. “Things go up and down and waver. The price of everything is floating. Here today and gone tomorrow, eh? Right, Dickie? They teach my kid here things like that in school. Howdya like that, kids studying economics, finance? He studies French too. He can speak French like a native, wouldya believe it?”
    “Elwood,” Nada said softly.
    “Honey, yes? Did you say something?”
    She was blinking rapidly. Maybe she was crying—what would pass for tears between them. Who knows? I hated Father for embarrassing her and herding her around like this. She was like an animal being driven into a pen, cut off on one side and then on another, bumped and bruised and pushed back relentlessly into a trap, but like any animal she might lunge out and gift us all with a swift bite.
    “Shut up, you stupid son-of-a-bitch! Oh, you loud-mouthed, vulgar son-of-a-bitch,” she whispered.
    “Tashya, in front of everybody?” Father cried. The pockets beneath his eyes drooped sadly. His cigar slanted down. His mouth was a fat thick line, just a line, but it too showed how dismayed he felt though— and this is the paradox—this was just what he had wanted.
    Mr. Hansom, unprepared, drew in his breath sharply and had no more sense than to stare at Nada, and I smirked a little and tried to catch his eye so he'd know this was nothing unusual, don't be upset, oh, nothing unusual! Common, daily! Please understand, Mr. Hansom! But with Nada around they never looked at me, the men and women both, whole crowds and hordes of them who never looked much at Father either, the two of us males off to one side and watching Nada run through her routine like a rag doll inspired by clockwork, ticking and clicking through tears and anger and exhaustion.
    “Oh, you humiliate me! You know nothing, you're ignorant, you're vulgar—you and your goddam promotion! Who the hell wanted to come here anyway? Why do we have to move?”
    “I don't understand you, attacking me for my prudence—yes, my prudence,” Father said, blustering around his cigar. “Mr. Hansom here is a man of the world. He understands the precariousness of promotions, business—”
    “Look, I want this house. This house,” Nada said.
    “And this city is an excellent one. My uncle Edmund lived here all his life—he took part in the cultural renaissance of the city and helped build the library here in Fernwood. Ah yes, Natashya, whether you will grant anyone in my family such powers! Ah yes, Natashya! Vulgar? Stupid? Am I a son-of-a-bitch? And if I am, why does that upset you after all these years? It doesn't upset anyone else, so why you? Why you?” He looked around at me, sought me out and dismissed me. “Does it upset my son, our son? No. Our friends? No, no! My parents, my friends, my child, my associates? The people who pay me money? No! They love me for what I am, and I am a stupid son-of-a-bitch, yes, perhaps eighteen houses we've looked at in two days, and I'm a stupid, vulgar son-of-a-bitch, yes, but you, Natashya, what are you? Let me tell you, Mr. Hansom. My wife is an intellectual. A writer. Ah yes, yes! A famous writer—”
    “Jesus Christ,” Nada snorted.
    “—a minor but famous writer, you know the kind. Only if they're minor are they any good. The ones we've heard of, Mr. Hansom, you and I, if we've heard of them they're already lousy, finished, just crap to the intellectuals! Crap! Everything we know about or read—and we went to college too, didn't we, Mr. Hansom?—everything we know is crap just because we know it, right? Only the