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“The machine will pick up.”
    “I’ll answer it, all right,” said Arnold. He nearlywrenched the receiver off the wall. “What do you want?” he demanded.
    “Arnold? Arnold Brinkman? It’s Celeste.”
    “Oh, Jesus, Celeste. I thought you were somebody else.”
    “I’m not,” his sister-in-law answered. “Is everything okay?”
    “Couldn’t be better. One of these days, I might just drop dead from pure joy. Any minute now.”
    “I’m glad—that things are going well, I mean. How’s my Raymond?”
    “Having the time of his life. I even took him to a baseball game.”
    “Did he use sun block? You have no idea how that child burns.”
    “Sure, sure,” lied Arnold. “And today, we’re off to the aquarium. In fact, Celeste, you caught us on the way out the door….”
    Arnold rolled his eyes at Judith. His sister-in-law, rather than taking a hint, had commenced relating her own adventures. She and her new husband, Walter The Republican Chiropractor, had island-hopped across the Dodecanese from American hotel to American hotel. They’d “discovered” a McDonalds with clean bathrooms in Rhodes; Mykonos offered the best Jacuzzi. The one disappointment has been Kos, the birthplace of Hippocrates, where Walter had gotten into a heated dispute with a Britishcardiologist over the merits of non-traditional healing. Celeste presented the altercation—which ultimately had to be settled by what she called “the gendarmes”—as though reading a trial transcript. Several times, Arnold attempted to interrupt. Finally, Judith took the telephone from him and told Celeste that she’d called at an inopportune moment. “I’m having a difficult time hearing you, dear,” said Judith. “No, it’s not the line. There’s some kind of rally going on across the street. About the war, probably. You know how the Village is.” Ray was standing at his aunt’s elbow, but Judith hung up the phone.
    “You’ll talk to Mommy later,” said Judith. “After Arnold quiets the masses.” She turned to Arnold, arms akimbo: “What is wrong with you? Tell them you’re sorry and they’ll go home.”
    “Dammit, Judith. That’s like pouring gasoline on a fire. If I humiliate myself a little, they’ll want me to humiliate myself a lot.”
    “Please, Arnold. Nobody ever died of humiliation.”
    He recalled what Bonnie Card had said:
You’ll offer some lukewarm apology, something about stress or nerves or whatnot, and you’ll go about your business
.
    “I love you, Judith. But I can’t do this for you.”
     
    The child started to sob. He ran into the living room and buried his face in the sofa pillows. Judith followed and cradled his head to her chest.
    “You have to do something,” she said. Her expression remained placid, but he could hear the tension rising in her voice. “If you don’t do something, I will.”
    “Fine, I’ll do something,” he said. “But not what you want.”
    Arnold walked to the front door. He glanced at himself in the hall mirror—he was poorly shaven and his overalls were caked in loam—but it was too late to do anything about that. “I’ll be back,” he said. “Wish me luck.”
    Judith said nothing. The boy whimpered. Arnold opened the front door.
    When he stepped out onto the stoop, a gust of hot air slapped against his face. Cameras flashed rapidly. Reporters peppered him with unintelligible questions. Yet miraculously, when he held up his hand, the crowd grew silent.
    “This is not a news story,” he said decisively. “There are children starving in Africa.
That
is a news story.” Arnold paused—and it struck him that a provocateur like Spitford might distort this remark into something racially inflammatory. “There are children starving all over Asia and Latin America,” he added quickly. “
That
is where you should be focusing your attention. Get your priorities straight.”
    A reporter called out: “Does that mean you refuse to apologize?”
    “I have nothing to