Jonathan Franzen - The Corrections

“It is a bit like raising the bar in a high jump,” Per explained. “Every year a bit more challenging.”

Mr. Söderblad, who by Enid’s count was drinking his eighth cup of coffee, leaned close to her and said, “My God these people are boring!”

“It is safe to say that I have read more deeply into Henrik Pontoppidan than most,” Per Nygren said.

Mrs. Söderblad tilted her head, smiling dreamily. “Do you know,” she said, perhaps to Enid or to Mrs. Roth, “that until one hundred years ago Norway was a colony of Sweden?”

The Norwegians erupted like a batted hive.

“Colony!? Colony??”

“Oh, oh,” Inga Nygren hissed, “I think there is a history here that our American friends deserve to—”

“This is a story of strategic alliances!” Per declared.

“By ‘colony’ what is the exact word in Swedish that you are groping for, Mrs . Söderblad? Since my English is obviously much stronger than yours, perhaps I can offer our American friends a more accurate translation, such as ‘ equal partner in a unified peninsular kingdom ’?”

“Signe,” Mr. Söderblad observed wickedly to his wife, “I do believe you’ve hit a nerve.” He raised a hand. “Waiter, refill.”

“If one chooses as a vantage point the late ninth century,” Per Nygren said, “and I suspect that even our Swedish friends will concede that the ascension of Harald the Blond is quite a reasonable ‘hopping-off place’ for our examination of the seesaw relationship of two great rival powers, or should I perhaps say three great powers, since Denmark as well plays a rather fascinating role in our story—”

“We’d love to hear it, but maybe another time,” Mrs. Roth interrupted, leaning over to touch Enid’s hand. “Remember we said seven o’clock?”

Enid was only briefly bewildered. She excused herself and followed Mrs. Roth into the main hall, where they encountered a crush of seniors and gastric aromas, disinfectant aromas.

“Enid, I’m Sylvia,” said Mrs. Roth. “How do you feel about slot machines? I’ve had a physical craving all day.”

“Oh, me too!” Enid said. “I think they’re in the Stringbird Room.”

“Strindberg, yes.”

Enid admired quickness of mind but seldom credited herself with possessing it. “Thanks for the — you know,” she said as she followed Sylvia Roth through the crush.

“Rescue. Don’t mention it.”

The Strindberg Room was packed with kibitzers, low-stakes blackjack players, and lovers of the slot. Enid couldn’t remember when she’d had so much fun. The fifth quarter she dropped brought her three plums; as if so much fruit upset the bowels of her machine, specie gushed from its nether parts. She shoveled her take into a plastic bucket. Eleven quarters later it happened again: three cherries, a silver dump. White-haired players losing steadily at neighboring machines gave her dirty looks. I’m embarrassed, she told herself, although she wasn’t.

Decades of insufficient affluence had made her a disciplined investor. From her winnings she set aside the amount of her initial investment. Half of every payoff she also salted away.

Her playing fund showed no sign of exhaustion, however.

“So, I’ve had my fix,” Sylvia Roth said after nearly an hour, tapping Enid on the shoulder. “Shall we go hear the string quartet?”

“Yes! Yes! It’s in the Greed Room.”

“Grieg,” said Sylvia, laughing.

“Oh, that is funny, isn’t it? Grieg. I’m so stupid tonight.”

“How much did you make? You seemed to be doing well.”

“I’m not sure, I didn’t count.”

Sylvia smiled at her intently. “I think you did, though. I think you counted exactly.”

“All right,” Enid said, blushing because she was liking Sylvia so much. “It was a hundred thirty dollars.”

A portrait of Edvard Grieg hung in a room of actual gilt ornateness that recalled the eighteenth-century splendor of Sweden’s royal court. The large number of empty chairs confirmed Enid’s suspicion that many of the cruise participants were low-class. She’d been on cruises where the classical concerts were SRO.

Although Sylvia seemed less than knocked dead by the musicians, Enid thought they were wonderful. They played, from memory , popular classical tunes such as “Swedish Rhapsody” and excerpts from Finlandia and Peer Gynt . In the middle of Peer Gynt the second violinist turned green and left the room for a minute (the sea really was a bit stormy, but Enid had a strong stomach and Sylvia had a patch) and then returned to his chair and managed to find his place again without, as it were, missing a beat. The twenty people in the audience shouted, “Bravo!”

At the elegant reception afterward Enid spent 7.7 percent of her gambling earnings on a cassette tape recorded by the quartet. She tried a complimentary glass of Spögg, a Swedish liqueur currently enjoying a $15 million marketing campaign. Spögg tasted like vodka, sugar, and horseradish, which in fact were its ingredients. As their fellow guests reacted to Spögg with looks of surprise and reproach, Enid and Sylvia fell to giggling.

“Special treat,” Sylvia said. “Complimentary Spögg. Try some!”

“Yum!” Enid said in stitches, snorting for air. “Spögg!”

Then it was on to the Ibsen Promenade for the scheduled ten o’clock ice cream social. In the elevator it seemed to Enid that the ship was suffering not only from a seesaw motion but also from a yaw, as if its bow were the face of someone experiencing repugnance. Leaving the elevator, she almost fell over a man on his hands and knees like half a two-man prank involving shoving. On the back of his T-shirt was a punch line: THEY JUST LOSE THEIR AIM.

Enid accepted an ice cream soda from a food handler in a toque. Then she initiated an exchange of family data with Sylvia which quickly became an exchange more of questions than of answers. It was Enid’s habit, when she sensed that family was not a person’s favorite topic, to probe the sore relentlessly. She would sooner have died than admit that her own children disappointed her, but hearing of other people’s disappointing children — their squalid divorces, their substance abuse, their foolish investments — made her feel better.

On the surface, Sylvia Roth had nothing to be ashamed of. Her sons were both in California, one in medicine and the other in computers, and both were married. Yet they seemed to be hot conversational sands to be avoided or crossed at a sprint. “Your daughter went to Swarthmore,” she said.

“Yes, briefly,” Enid said. “So, and five grandsons, though. My goodness. How old is the youngest?”

“He was two last month, and what about you?” Sylvia said. “Any grandkids?”

“Our oldest son, Gary, has three sons, but so, that’s interesting, a five-year gap between the youngest and the next youngest?”

“Nearly six, actually, and your son in New York, I want to hear about him, too. Did you stop and see him today?”

“Yes, he made a lovely lunch but we didn’t get down to see his office at the Wall Street Journal where he has a new job because the weather was bad, so, and do you get out much to California? To see your grandsons?”

Some spirit, a willingness to play the game, left Sylvia. She sat peering into her empty soda glass. “Enid, will you do me a favor?” she said finally. “Come upstairs and have a nightcap.”

Enid’s day had begun in St. Jude at five in the morning, but she never declined an attractive invitation. Upstairs in the Lagerkvist Taproom she and Sylvia were served by a dwarf in a horned helmet and leather jerkin who persuaded them to order cloudberry akvavit.