Read Online A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion - Free Book Online
Authors: Joan Didion
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DOUBT HEARD THE TAPE .
“ This is not an isolated action. We ask no one’s permission to make the revolution. ”
I heard only part of it, on a Radio Jamaica relay, but I read excerpts from it in Time and in Prensa Latina and in the Caracas Daily Journal , excerpts always illustrated by the impenetrable picture of the child in the candy-striped pinafore. I heard only part of the Radio Jamaica relay because Gerardo was at the house the night it was played, and he had arranged the evening as usual to annoy and discomfit everyone involved. I used to think the design of such evenings Gerardo’s only true amusement.
Or more accurately his only true vocation.
Since he was only fitfully amused by anything at all.
In the first place Gerardo had asked Elena to come for dinner that night. That Elena came was a tribute to Gerardo’s sexual power over her, because Elena was not speaking to me. Elena was not speaking to me because I had that morning advised her that she and Gerardo would be better off exhibiting their tedious interest in each other’s bodies in the Caribe ballroom than at political meetings under surveillance by both Victor and the Americans. I did not like hearing about Elena and Gerardo from Tuck Bradley. I did not like Tuck Bradley hearing about Elena and Gerardo from Kasindorf and Riley. As a matter of fact I had already heard about Elena and Gerardo, from Victor, and I did not like that either.
Elena said that Gerardo was the only person in the entire family who understood dancing or “fun.”
I said that this might be true but in this case Gerardo’s “fun” lay not in dancing but in embarrassing the family by parading the widow of a family presidente at meetings of people opposed to the family. It made no difference if Gerardo went to these meetings, because Gerardo’s image in the community, deserved or not, was that of someone “worthless,” and “young.” It did make a difference if she, Elena, went to these meetings, because her image in the community, again deserved or not, was that of someone “virtuous,” and “older.”
A national treasure as it were.
But Elena had stopped speaking. Elena did not even know that these events to which Gerardo took her were “meetings.” She believed them to be “parties.” I think she still does.
In any case.
In the second place.
Just asking Elena to dinner had not quite sated Gerardo’s craving for social piquancy. He had asked Elena and then he had proceeded to ask an extremely sullen girl he had been seeing off and on for years, an ambitious mestiza who had once gone to Paris with him and left him first for a minor Thyssen and then for an English rock-and-roll singer and had recently returned to Boca Grande to redeploy her resources. The girl was the daughter of the cashier at the Jockey Club and her name was Carmen Arrellano but she called herself Camilla de Arrellano y Bolívar and did not visit the Jockey Club. On this particular evening she was sulking because Gerardo was listening to the radio, and possibly also because I had told the cook to ignore her demand to be served a separate dinner of three boiled shrimp on a white plate with half a lemon wrapped in gauze. The cook had found this demand particularly offensive because her son was married to Carmen Arrellano’s cousin.
“ All class enemies must suffer exemplary punishment. ”
The voice on Radio Jamaica was sweetly instructive.
“ When the fascist police think we are near we will be far away. When the fascist police think we are far away we will be near. ”
“She lisps,” Gerardo said.
“She sounds like those Cubans at the party,” Elena said. Elena had several times mentioned this “party” to which she and Gerardo had gone the night before, apparently thinking to annoy me and Carmen Arrellano in a single stroke. “Doesn’t she, Gerardo. Those dreadful Cubans who came with Bebe Chicago. I don’t mean the lisp, I mean the words.”
“I’m only listening for
“ This is not an isolated action. We ask no one’s permission to make the revolution. ”
I heard only part of it, on a Radio Jamaica relay, but I read excerpts from it in Time and in Prensa Latina and in the Caracas Daily Journal , excerpts always illustrated by the impenetrable picture of the child in the candy-striped pinafore. I heard only part of the Radio Jamaica relay because Gerardo was at the house the night it was played, and he had arranged the evening as usual to annoy and discomfit everyone involved. I used to think the design of such evenings Gerardo’s only true amusement.
Or more accurately his only true vocation.
Since he was only fitfully amused by anything at all.
In the first place Gerardo had asked Elena to come for dinner that night. That Elena came was a tribute to Gerardo’s sexual power over her, because Elena was not speaking to me. Elena was not speaking to me because I had that morning advised her that she and Gerardo would be better off exhibiting their tedious interest in each other’s bodies in the Caribe ballroom than at political meetings under surveillance by both Victor and the Americans. I did not like hearing about Elena and Gerardo from Tuck Bradley. I did not like Tuck Bradley hearing about Elena and Gerardo from Kasindorf and Riley. As a matter of fact I had already heard about Elena and Gerardo, from Victor, and I did not like that either.
Elena said that Gerardo was the only person in the entire family who understood dancing or “fun.”
I said that this might be true but in this case Gerardo’s “fun” lay not in dancing but in embarrassing the family by parading the widow of a family presidente at meetings of people opposed to the family. It made no difference if Gerardo went to these meetings, because Gerardo’s image in the community, deserved or not, was that of someone “worthless,” and “young.” It did make a difference if she, Elena, went to these meetings, because her image in the community, again deserved or not, was that of someone “virtuous,” and “older.”
A national treasure as it were.
But Elena had stopped speaking. Elena did not even know that these events to which Gerardo took her were “meetings.” She believed them to be “parties.” I think she still does.
In any case.
In the second place.
Just asking Elena to dinner had not quite sated Gerardo’s craving for social piquancy. He had asked Elena and then he had proceeded to ask an extremely sullen girl he had been seeing off and on for years, an ambitious mestiza who had once gone to Paris with him and left him first for a minor Thyssen and then for an English rock-and-roll singer and had recently returned to Boca Grande to redeploy her resources. The girl was the daughter of the cashier at the Jockey Club and her name was Carmen Arrellano but she called herself Camilla de Arrellano y Bolívar and did not visit the Jockey Club. On this particular evening she was sulking because Gerardo was listening to the radio, and possibly also because I had told the cook to ignore her demand to be served a separate dinner of three boiled shrimp on a white plate with half a lemon wrapped in gauze. The cook had found this demand particularly offensive because her son was married to Carmen Arrellano’s cousin.
“ All class enemies must suffer exemplary punishment. ”
The voice on Radio Jamaica was sweetly instructive.
“ When the fascist police think we are near we will be far away. When the fascist police think we are far away we will be near. ”
“She lisps,” Gerardo said.
“She sounds like those Cubans at the party,” Elena said. Elena had several times mentioned this “party” to which she and Gerardo had gone the night before, apparently thinking to annoy me and Carmen Arrellano in a single stroke. “Doesn’t she, Gerardo. Those dreadful Cubans who came with Bebe Chicago. I don’t mean the lisp, I mean the words.”
“I’m only listening for
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