Paul Theroux - O-Zone

"It won't do any good," Hardy said.

It was just like Hardy to be so self-absorbed. He agreed there was a problem but refused to discuss a solution.

"If only he were calmer," she said, realizing that she was the one who was fretting.

Sometimes at night she heard him grunting over Pap, voice-printing, and once doing a random check on the bug she heard Hooper's voice. Hooper, of all people! She thought of confiding her fears to Fizzy, but how could she without revealing that her gravest anxieties were provoked from what she heard on the bug?

The "Mission Westwind," the "orders," the "Commander" business, worried her most, because they seemed the most fantastic and unlikely. And all those weapons — they had to be weapons. And the boots — boots for a penguin of fifteen who had been in New York City alone only once in his life, and that for a mere afternoon! That one time was only about six weeks ago: perhaps it meant something? Maybe he was gearing up for another expedition to Battery Park or Tribeca!

"I think it's war games," she said to Hardy. "I hope it's war games."

Hardy smiled. What did he know? Nothing: where Fizzy was concerned, Hardy was a total stranger. He was not the father. He knew that. She hated his detachment. He was so ambitious — such a sneak.

What was Hardy's sympathy worth? It was worse than his humoring her. When she became agitated he made it seem as if the problem were hers. She was the worrier, she was stranger, and she was probably causing it all — that's what his sympathetic tone said. He was still smiling in that horrible unhelpful way.

"The kid's fifteen years old. He's a Type A. He's a clinic-genius. What do you expect? What do you want?"

From the upstairs window she saw Fizzy dressed as for a moon landing or a space flight, holding his arms out like a deep-sea diver, and walking stiff-legged among all his packages and parcels, all those weapons, that equipment, the rejected boots.

"This is Commander, Mission Westwind. Risk-elimination weapons check commencing at oh-nine-hundred—"

Moura thought; I want to find him.

The three women usually took turns dividing the day. Lunch in Connecticut was Rinka's idea. She provided the rotor and the pilot.

"We could have taken the train," Holly was saying over the whup-whup-whup of the blade. "You meet people on the train," and she winked. "Real-lifers!"

"This is quicker," Rinka said.

"This old thing!"

It was old. It was noisy. It was a low-altitude model. They were still not in Connecticut — at least nowhere near the restaurant — and already Moura was sick of Can't hear you, darling! and everyone shouting everything three times.

"I said, you could have taken your rotor," Rinka yelled.

"Willis loaned it to someone who's doing a long haul," Holly said. "Hooper Allbright, I think."

Moura said, "Did you say Hooper?"

"Can't hear you, darling!" Holly smiled back at her, and then turned to Rinka, who was sitting next to her. "It's so dull here I want to puke."

"Give me a chance. You'll get your turn later," Rinka said. "Anyway, we're not in New York anymore. That's something."

"Connecticut's worse. All those fortresses. All those shantytowns. All those trees. It's riddled with roadblocks, you know. Checkpoints. Scanners. You can hardly move!"

"That's why I didn't want to take a car."

"Who said anything about a car?" Holly winked again at Moura, who could scarcely follow the conversation. "I was on the train once. It was when that germ scare went around and everyone wore masks. I had a really devastating one, with huge eyes and little jaws, like a hornet. The man next to me had a shiny leather one. He had a sort of muffled voice, but I knew what he wanted. 'How about a little privacy?' he says. He had a room on the train — he was an Owner, from upstate, going home. We went to his room. He took his clothes off — everything but his mask. I found that incredibly sexy. I did the same. He said, 'Want to dance?' Did we dance!"

All this while Moura had been leaning closer in order to hear, and then she smiled and said softly, "I know what you want, Holly."

"Can't hear you, darling!"

Soon the rotor was setting them down on a circular pad in front of an old brick building with a white wooden porch and freshly painted trim. The three women paused to admire the chimney, and wondered whether the smoke coming out of it was real — and decided it was not.

"The food's supposed to be very good," Rinka said. "They grow most of it themselves in those hothouses."

The bright bubble-domes gleamed on the next low hill.

"Fresh asparagus in February. They even do their own mangoes and guavas."

Moura said, "I'm in the mood for textured lobster."

"Meat fabric," Rinka said.

"I'm sick of that joke," Holly said. But she seemed angrier than was justified by her friends' mockery of Willis' provisions. Perhaps it was her forced smile which made her seem so cross. She said, "Look at us. Three attractive women spend one day a week together because we're frustrated and restless. What is our brilliant solution?" She turned to face them and said sharply, "We eat lunch."

They were met by a boy in a pale blue one-piece suit. He was not much older than Fizzy, Moura noticed, but in his slow attentive way he seemed both wiser and saner, and quite a bit more intelligent.

"I'd like to make your lunch here as comfortable as possible," he said. The name badge on his suit was lettered Royce. "Just let me know if there's anything I can do for you."

Holly said, "Do you mean anything?"

"I hate it when people are rude to workers," Moura said when the boy left them. "You embarrassed him. You're always doing it. Hardy's always doing it. Hooper's the only one who gives them a break."

"They're used to Owners here," Holly said, "Don't worry, I'll pay him."

And her mention of Hooper made Moura remember something else: "Were you talking about Hooper when we were in the rotor?"

"No," Holly said, but she was not listening — she was glancing around the restaurant. "Look at the people here. Where did they get their permits! They're all duds. Sometimes even Owners look awful. Look at him — I'd rather get jumped by an alien!"

They ordered their meal, and because they were not hungry and were so eager to leave, they only glanced at the menu, and they ordered too much. When all the food came— bowls of vegetables, a salver of beef, a half-meter of salmon — they wanted to go.

"There's nothing special about this stuff," Holly said after they had picked at it a little. Then she spoke into the microphone: "Royce, darling. Take this garbage away." She looked at her friends. "When I'm not hungry," she said, "I don't even think of it as food."

"Sorry," Royce said, gathering the plates.

Holly fixed him with a smile and said, "I'd much rather eat you."

Back in the rotor, Rinka said in a challenging way to Holly, "Your turn, darling."

"Coffee at the Greenhouse," Holly said. "Hooper told Willis that he saw people walking around naked — it's apparently a new Starkie fashion."

"These fashions that copy aliens give me the creeps,*' Rinka said.

"There's no one else to copy," Holly said. "Anyway, I want to see if it's true, I haven't been there since before Christmas."

That was the routine, each woman taking a turn. On the way back to New York, Rinka said, "Is something wrong, Moura? You're so quiet. Is it our bitching?"

"No. It's Fizzy. I think he's breaking down."

"Clinic kids have a wicked record for breakdowns," Holly said in her cheerful rattling way. "But you didn't go to any old clinic, did you? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because I just thought of my turn," Moura said.

"First give my turn a chance," Holly said.

Just before they landed on the rotor pad on the roof of the Midtown Mall, Holly changed into a short apron, and but for this she was naked.