Jonathan Franzen - Strong Motion - A Novel

Bebe had disappeared, leaving Renée alone in the center of the room, in her black clothing and black sunglasses, surrounded by women of all ages in their pastels and aggressively unerotic hairdos. More and more of them were looking at her. Just two weeks ago the gazes crawling all over her back might have broken down her self-possession, but she could stand them now.

At the front of the room a woman in a white sweat suit with a whistle and a cross around her neck was clapping her hands. She was like every gym teacher Renée had had in high school. “All right, everybody, time to clean it up. We’re going to watch a video together. Let’s go! Clean it up!” She walked around the perimeter, pulling down tattered blackout shades while the painters obediently closed their tempera jars. Renée planted herself against the rear wall. There were men here, a sad little assortment sitting cross-legged and looking at their hands.

The women clustered like Camp Fire Girls in front of a cart with video equipment on it. The lights went out. The show began.

To three-chord Marin County music, a mare suckles her foal in a summer field with the Tetons in the background. Adorable fox cubs trot down a forest path behind their mother. Birds sing and stuff food down the traps of their chicks. Cut to a club in TriBeCa, guitars screaming, strobes flashing. A woman in shades and purple lipstick laughs, showing teeth, and says, “Unnatural acts .” Back in the Tetons, a freckled mother in a gingham dress watches her toddlers pick wildflowers. The sun shines through her auburn hair. “Mommy!” a toddler cries. In the shimmering distance the father is chopping wood. We see the swell of a new pregnancy beneath the gingham. Guitars shriek outside the door of the high-tech ladies’ room, where two black girls in stiletto heels arch their backs like porn queens as they take cocaine nasally. A stutter zoom through the door of an empty stall: twenty-four-week fetus, red as life, is floating in the toilet bowl . Time-lapse blossoming of a downy gentian. Waddling prairie-dog pups. Calf craning its neck for teat of cow. Ducklings in Jackson Hole. By a dancing fire, behind a Vase-lined lens, Our Lady of the Gingham Dress holds a child on each knee and kisses them, kisses them, kisses them. The guitars more assonant yet white hands, black hands, hands with heavy jewelry push the flush lever viciously, but the fetus is like one of those turds that will not go down. Strobes flash. The thwarted hands contort in rage . A child rocks her doll to sleep. Mare and foal canter in super slo-mo.

The church members from rural AK, from rural MO, from NC and SC, from Buffalo and Indianapolis and Shreveport remained as calm as the hospitalized while they received this dose of filmic sophistication. The rear doors of the hall kept opening, admitting sunlight and weary missionaries who set their placards on the floor and widened the reverent circle around the TV screen. Renée’s mouth hung open. She was thinking what a lucky thing it was she’d come, how incredibly easily she might not have.

. At Sunnyvale Farms you won’t see pornography on display behind the counter. You won’t find birth control on racks within easy reach of your children. Sunnyvale Farms is more than a convenience store, it’s a home away from home — your home. And remember, for every ten-dollar purchase you make at Sunnyvale Farms, we’ll make a contribution to the war on drugs. To help make this world a sunnier place for your children. Sunnyvale Farms: The Family Convenience Store . ”

“So what magazine are you from?” a young Southern man at Renée’s elbow asked her. He had a burnished, chubby face and corn-silk hair, and there was an assertiveness to his posture, a pushiness to his glasses and to the angle of his head, that reminded her of Louis Holland. It was Philip Stites.

“No magazine,” she said.

“Newspaper, TV station, radio station?”

“No.”

“Shoot. You ruined my record.”

“My name’s Renée Seitchek.”

Stites leaned closer to her face, obliquely, like an ophthalmologist. “Sure! Of course. What are you doin’ here?”

“Watching. the most disgusting videos I’ve ever seen.”

“Pretty heavy, isn’t it. Listen, Renée, I’d love to talk to you. Can you come back, maybe? Or you can stay if you want. I’m busy till about six-thirty.”

“We’ll see how much of this I can stand.”

“Good deal. Hey.” He made her look at him. There were wrinkles in his navy blazer, and his yellow tie was loosened. “I’m real glad you came. I mean it.”

He crossed the darkened room, weaving through his flock, and went out by a side door. Several members rose and followed him. The rest continued to watch the advertising, which lasted nearly another hour. When the shades were finally raised, the light in the windows was golden. Three women in white aprons came in through a rear door, followed discreetly by an aroma of pork and beans. The gym teacher who had run the video quieted the crowd and read announcements from a clipboard.

She was pleased to welcome back June, Ruby, Amanda, Susan Dee, Stephanie, Mrs. Powers, Mrs. Moran, Mr. DiConstanzo, Susan H., Allan, Irene, and Mrs. Flathead, all released today from the Cambridge City Jail. Their twenty days behind bars had set the city back an estimated $11,000, not counting court costs, which the city was suing to recoup.

The Group of Twelve stood and received an ovation.

Other good news was that Intrafamily Services of Braintree had indefinitely suspended its death procedures as of today. “To all those who helped them reach that informed decision,” said the gym teacher, “my thanks, the church’s thanks, and above all the thanks of the countless sweet children to whom you’ll have given the gift of life. Praise the Lord, Jesus gets the glory.”

Another ovation.

New members present for the first time were Mrs. Jerome Shumacher of Trumbull, Connecticut, Mrs. Libby Fulton of Wallingford, Pennsylvania, Miss Anne Dinkins of Sparta, North Carolina, and Miss Lola Corcoran of Lexington, Massachusetts. After applauding, the congregation was urged to make the newcomers feel part of the family.

“Bebe Wittleder,” the gym teacher continued, “tells me we also have with us tonight a visitor from Harvard University, Dr. Renée Seitchek, a geologist you may remember from the special broadcast—”

The congregation swung to gape at her. An image of her small person formed on six hundred retinas.

“Peace and goodwill unto you in the name of Jesus Christ, Dr. Seitchek. You are welcome to celebrate and break bread with us, we are an open church.”

Stites returned in time to hear the last few announcements. When they were over, he immediately began a prayer, ending with a group recitation of Our Father. A woman at an upright piano guided the congregation through three hymns. Stites sang along, but it was impossible to pick his voice out. He sat down informally on the edge of a school-cafeteria table, the very tops of his argyle socks showing, and surveyed his flock, allowing anticipation to build. When he finally spoke, his voice rang through the hall.

“You’ve heard it said: God is love. People, God is love. God is two things: love and wisdom.

“People, I want you to try and picture God. Picture a being who is Love so much that He’s stronger than atoms or anything, He is pure and total love. Now, in the beginning, God had so much love inside Him that it created the universe, just through the force of love. He created the universe so there’d be something there for Him to love. And there was a Void? And the Void, the Book of Genesis tells us it became the universe, but it was still just a mass of nothing, just stuff. And He loved it and was wiser than it, and the reason it took shape—"