WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.820 align:middle line:90% 00:00:09.820 --> 00:00:12.940 align:middle line:90% [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:00:12.940 --> 00:00:21.100 align:middle line:90% 00:00:21.100 --> 00:00:25.210 align:middle line:84% Tonight's reading is the last on the Poetry Center schedule. 00:00:25.210 --> 00:00:27.790 align:middle line:84% I'd like to announce three other special events that 00:00:27.790 --> 00:00:29.200 align:middle line:90% are coming up. 00:00:29.200 --> 00:00:31.900 align:middle line:84% Writers at Work are sponsoring a reading 00:00:31.900 --> 00:00:37.850 align:middle line:84% this Thursday night, November 5 in the junior ballroom. 00:00:37.850 --> 00:00:43.870 align:middle line:84% And the readers will be Mary Carter and Pat Hoctel. 00:00:43.870 --> 00:00:51.460 align:middle line:84% And on November 12, in the afternoon 3 o'clock, 00:00:51.460 --> 00:00:55.330 align:middle line:84% Robert Pack will speak in Student Union 256. 00:00:55.330 --> 00:00:57.460 align:middle line:84% We'll have some posters up about that 00:00:57.460 --> 00:01:01.070 align:middle line:90% to remind you of the place. 00:01:01.070 --> 00:01:04.519 align:middle line:84% The Poetry Center and Writers at Work 00:01:04.519 --> 00:01:10.490 align:middle line:84% are combining forces to bring to campus Mark Strand who 00:01:10.490 --> 00:01:14.540 align:middle line:84% will read with Nancy Mairs in this auditorium two weeks 00:01:14.540 --> 00:01:16.535 align:middle line:90% from tonight, November 17. 00:01:16.535 --> 00:01:19.220 align:middle line:90% 00:01:19.220 --> 00:01:21.980 align:middle line:84% I hope you can come to the Student Union following 00:01:21.980 --> 00:01:22.970 align:middle line:90% the reading. 00:01:22.970 --> 00:01:25.130 align:middle line:84% We'll have refreshments in the Junior Ballroom. 00:01:25.130 --> 00:01:28.825 align:middle line:90% 00:01:28.825 --> 00:01:30.810 align:middle line:84% The Junior Ballroom is on the third floor 00:01:30.810 --> 00:01:38.700 align:middle line:84% level through that arcade just up above the dining room. 00:01:38.700 --> 00:01:43.470 align:middle line:90% 00:01:43.470 --> 00:01:46.470 align:middle line:84% John Barth's most recent novel Letters 00:01:46.470 --> 00:01:49.980 align:middle line:90% was published by Putnam in 1979. 00:01:49.980 --> 00:01:54.510 align:middle line:84% His four previous novels are The Floating Opera, 00:01:54.510 --> 00:01:57.930 align:middle line:84% The End Of The Road, The Sot-Weed Factor, 00:01:57.930 --> 00:02:01.410 align:middle line:90% and Giles Goat-Boy. 00:02:01.410 --> 00:02:05.730 align:middle line:84% He's written a series of short fictions, Lost In The Funhouse, 00:02:05.730 --> 00:02:08.880 align:middle line:84% and a volume of novellas, Chimera, 00:02:08.880 --> 00:02:14.280 align:middle line:84% which is National Book Award winner in 1973. 00:02:14.280 --> 00:02:16.620 align:middle line:84% He's currently on the faculty at John Hopkins 00:02:16.620 --> 00:02:18.420 align:middle line:90% University in Maryland. 00:02:18.420 --> 00:02:20.970 align:middle line:84% It's my pleasure to introduce to you John Barth. 00:02:20.970 --> 00:02:24.379 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:02:24.379 --> 00:02:35.110 align:middle line:90% 00:02:35.110 --> 00:02:39.340 align:middle line:90% Thank you, Lois Shelton. 00:02:39.340 --> 00:02:42.880 align:middle line:84% I spent a happy part of this afternoon 00:02:42.880 --> 00:02:47.860 align:middle line:84% chatting with the undergraduate and graduate students here. 00:02:47.860 --> 00:02:53.170 align:middle line:84% And in the course of that chat said the three or four 00:02:53.170 --> 00:02:56.650 align:middle line:84% presumably interesting things that I'm convinced-- 00:02:56.650 --> 00:02:59.200 align:middle line:84% I'm convinced that nobody at any one moment in his 00:02:59.200 --> 00:03:02.822 align:middle line:84% her life has more than three or four interesting things to say. 00:03:02.822 --> 00:03:04.780 align:middle line:84% I said them all in the course of-- whether they 00:03:04.780 --> 00:03:07.995 align:middle line:84% are interesting or not, I got them said in that hour. 00:03:07.995 --> 00:03:09.370 align:middle line:84% So tonight I'm not going to chat. 00:03:09.370 --> 00:03:14.080 align:middle line:84% Tonight I'm going to read almost uninterruptedly 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:15.700 align:middle line:90% for about an hour. 00:03:15.700 --> 00:03:18.460 align:middle line:84% Though I'll interrupt to announce the end of one thing 00:03:18.460 --> 00:03:20.380 align:middle line:90% and the beginning of another. 00:03:20.380 --> 00:03:24.250 align:middle line:84% I've just finished another book and like all good writers, 00:03:24.250 --> 00:03:26.560 align:middle line:84% like all writers, whether they are good or not, 00:03:26.560 --> 00:03:29.900 align:middle line:84% one is very full of the baby that one has just delivered. 00:03:29.900 --> 00:03:36.940 align:middle line:84% And so I will without further comment 00:03:36.940 --> 00:03:41.860 align:middle line:84% begin by quoting the jacket copy for this new novel which, 00:03:41.860 --> 00:03:44.305 align:middle line:84% which Putnam will bring out in the spring of '82. 00:03:44.305 --> 00:03:47.770 align:middle line:90% 00:03:47.770 --> 00:03:53.200 align:middle line:84% Sabbatical: A Romance is the story of Susan Rachel Allan 00:03:53.200 --> 00:03:56.170 align:middle line:84% Seckler, a sharp young associate professor 00:03:56.170 --> 00:03:58.450 align:middle line:84% of classical American literature, 00:03:58.450 --> 00:04:01.720 align:middle line:84% part Jewish, part gypsy, possibly 00:04:01.720 --> 00:04:04.840 align:middle line:90% descended from Edgar Allan Poe. 00:04:04.840 --> 00:04:08.500 align:middle line:84% And her husband Fenwick Scott Key Turner, 00:04:08.500 --> 00:04:13.870 align:middle line:84% a 50-year-old ex CIA officer presently between careers, 00:04:13.870 --> 00:04:16.690 align:middle line:84% ardent sailor and husband, lineal 00:04:16.690 --> 00:04:20.440 align:middle line:84% descendant of the author of The Star Spangled Banner. 00:04:20.440 --> 00:04:23.140 align:middle line:84% And himself the author of a troublemaking book 00:04:23.140 --> 00:04:25.840 align:middle line:90% about his former employer. 00:04:25.840 --> 00:04:29.380 align:middle line:84% Fenwick Turner is now an aspiring novelist 00:04:29.380 --> 00:04:33.520 align:middle line:84% who hates spy novels as much as he loves his wife of seven 00:04:33.520 --> 00:04:36.400 align:middle line:90% years, his black eyed Susan. 00:04:36.400 --> 00:04:40.030 align:middle line:84% What Fenn really wants to tell with Sue's collaboration 00:04:40.030 --> 00:04:41.650 align:middle line:90% is their story. 00:04:41.650 --> 00:04:43.930 align:middle line:84% A story that they've lived in part 00:04:43.930 --> 00:04:47.980 align:middle line:84% aboard their cruising sailboat Pokey, Wye Island. 00:04:47.980 --> 00:04:51.310 align:middle line:84% Just completing a nine month sabbatical voyage 00:04:51.310 --> 00:04:55.750 align:middle line:84% from its home port in Chesapeake Bay to the Caribbean and back. 00:04:55.750 --> 00:04:59.140 align:middle line:84% It is a story that involves, among other mysteries, 00:04:59.140 --> 00:05:03.040 align:middle line:84% sinister Key Island, uncharted, smack 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:06.550 align:middle line:84% in the middle of the busy Chesapeake, put there I 00:05:06.550 --> 00:05:09.040 align:middle line:90% suspect by James Michener. 00:05:09.040 --> 00:05:12.310 align:middle line:84% The unsolved disappearance-- the unsolved disappearance 00:05:12.310 --> 00:05:15.550 align:middle line:84% into that same bay of Fenn's twin brother, 00:05:15.550 --> 00:05:19.910 align:middle line:84% Manfred, also known as the Prince of Darkness. 00:05:19.910 --> 00:05:24.460 align:middle line:84% A fabled sea monster in realistic Tidewater, Maryland. 00:05:24.460 --> 00:05:27.160 align:middle line:84% The vexing possibility that our children 00:05:27.160 --> 00:05:30.040 align:middle line:84% may actually be our grandchildren. 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:32.230 align:middle line:84% The painful question whether to have 00:05:32.230 --> 00:05:36.520 align:middle line:84% any children at this hour of the world and darkest 00:05:36.520 --> 00:05:42.190 align:middle line:84% mystery of all, but the key to all such mysteries, love. 00:05:42.190 --> 00:05:45.520 align:middle line:84% That key to their story is their story. 00:05:45.520 --> 00:05:47.410 align:middle line:84% With a little help from the author. 00:05:47.410 --> 00:05:52.490 align:middle line:84% Susan and Fenwick write Sabbatical: A Romance. 00:05:52.490 --> 00:05:56.920 align:middle line:84% Now the jacket blurb, which in fact was written by Mrs. Barth, 00:05:56.920 --> 00:06:02.650 align:middle line:84% here dissolves into obligatory hyperbole, which I'll skip. 00:06:02.650 --> 00:06:05.770 align:middle line:84% And simply read you instead a few excerpts 00:06:05.770 --> 00:06:08.230 align:middle line:84% from the story which may illuminate 00:06:08.230 --> 00:06:12.370 align:middle line:84% some of those mysteries aforementioned. 00:06:12.370 --> 00:06:14.710 align:middle line:84% In this first and longest excerpt, 00:06:14.710 --> 00:06:18.310 align:middle line:84% which I'm calling The Cosmos for Lunch. 00:06:18.310 --> 00:06:21.850 align:middle line:84% I find it-- I think it may be an appropriate excerpt 00:06:21.850 --> 00:06:27.550 align:middle line:84% to read here because the novel is largely seaborne. 00:06:27.550 --> 00:06:29.760 align:middle line:84% And here we are in a climate, which somebody told me 00:06:29.760 --> 00:06:33.070 align:middle line:84% a while ago, the humidity level right now is 6%. 00:06:33.070 --> 00:06:35.550 align:middle line:84% So I think perhaps to bring a little humidity in-- 00:06:35.550 --> 00:06:37.150 align:middle line:84% well, in fact, I'm going to start 00:06:37.150 --> 00:06:39.430 align:middle line:84% reading not one of the watery parts of the novel 00:06:39.430 --> 00:06:43.810 align:middle line:84% but one of the dry land parts until we can acclimate 00:06:43.810 --> 00:06:47.470 align:middle line:90% to a watery environment. 00:06:47.470 --> 00:06:49.750 align:middle line:84% In this excerpt, we find Fenwick Turner 00:06:49.750 --> 00:06:52.270 align:middle line:84% en route by bus from Solomon's Island, 00:06:52.270 --> 00:06:56.860 align:middle line:84% Maryland, Pokey's temporary mooring, to Washington DC, 00:06:56.860 --> 00:07:01.780 align:middle line:84% to meet an old agency friend and mentor named Dugald Taylor. 00:07:01.780 --> 00:07:05.650 align:middle line:84% Who has invited him to lunch at the Cosmos Club in Washington 00:07:05.650 --> 00:07:09.070 align:middle line:84% to discuss Fenwick brother's disappearance. 00:07:09.070 --> 00:07:10.750 align:middle line:84% Fenwick and Susan you must remember 00:07:10.750 --> 00:07:15.280 align:middle line:84% have just re-entered Chesapeake Bay after a nine month nautical 00:07:15.280 --> 00:07:18.040 align:middle line:90% adventure. 00:07:18.040 --> 00:07:20.230 align:middle line:90% Fenn catches his bus. 00:07:20.230 --> 00:07:24.310 align:middle line:84% Strange sensation to be inland again on wheels, out 00:07:24.310 --> 00:07:25.690 align:middle line:90% of sight of water. 00:07:25.690 --> 00:07:28.300 align:middle line:84% Stuffs his hat into his inside breast pocket, 00:07:28.300 --> 00:07:30.760 align:middle line:84% dons his eyeglasses, and settles down 00:07:30.760 --> 00:07:34.420 align:middle line:84% with notebook and pen for the 60 mile ride. 00:07:34.420 --> 00:07:37.180 align:middle line:84% The reader has seen that Fenwick Scott Key 00:07:37.180 --> 00:07:40.690 align:middle line:84% Turner is a man neither literary nor unlettered. 00:07:40.690 --> 00:07:44.800 align:middle line:84% In his wife's opinion however, and Susan Rachel Allan Seckler 00:07:44.800 --> 00:07:46.810 align:middle line:84% is professionally a literary woman, 00:07:46.810 --> 00:07:50.650 align:middle line:84% he thinks about the medium in a sensible, sometimes original 00:07:50.650 --> 00:07:51.280 align:middle line:90% way. 00:07:51.280 --> 00:07:56.050 align:middle line:84% Unfettered by ideology, conventional preoccupation-- 00:07:56.050 --> 00:07:59.470 align:middle line:84% preconceptions or over much sophistication. 00:07:59.470 --> 00:08:02.890 align:middle line:84% Between Solomons and Hollywood, Maryland, for example, 00:08:02.890 --> 00:08:05.440 align:middle line:84% he makes a notebook note on the problem 00:08:05.440 --> 00:08:08.500 align:middle line:84% of the literally marvelous in our story. 00:08:08.500 --> 00:08:11.710 align:middle line:84% A problem he means to review with Susan next time 00:08:11.710 --> 00:08:12.880 align:middle line:90% we are sailing. 00:08:12.880 --> 00:08:15.250 align:middle line:84% Like many of his notes, this one takes 00:08:15.250 --> 00:08:18.430 align:middle line:84% the form of an imaginary dialogue with her. 00:08:18.430 --> 00:08:21.319 align:middle line:84% Its subject is the [? literally marvelous. 00:08:21.319 --> 00:08:27.040 align:middle line:84% ?] You and I agree that a story with nothing fantastic in it 00:08:27.040 --> 00:08:28.780 align:middle line:90% lacks something essential. 00:08:28.780 --> 00:08:31.450 align:middle line:84% But how can we stick to the fantastic into the middle 00:08:31.450 --> 00:08:35.559 align:middle line:84% of Chesapeake Bay in the May and June of 1980? 00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:38.650 align:middle line:90% Giant blue crabs, sea serpents. 00:08:38.650 --> 00:08:41.710 align:middle line:84% Of Chessie, the sometimes sighted monster 00:08:41.710 --> 00:08:46.270 align:middle line:84% of the lower Bay, we remain skeptical, do we not? 00:08:46.270 --> 00:08:47.050 align:middle line:90% We do. 00:08:47.050 --> 00:08:49.270 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:08:49.270 --> 00:08:53.200 align:middle line:84% Uncharted islands in familiar waters, which are right. 00:08:53.200 --> 00:08:55.030 align:middle line:90% The mysterious is one thing. 00:08:55.030 --> 00:08:57.160 align:middle line:90% Key Island is mysterious. 00:08:57.160 --> 00:09:00.190 align:middle line:84% Gus's disappearance was mysterious. 00:09:00.190 --> 00:09:04.420 align:middle line:84% Susan I should say, or Susan being a full time 00:09:04.420 --> 00:09:07.510 align:middle line:84% academic, the text of this novel is 00:09:07.510 --> 00:09:09.880 align:middle line:84% spangled with footnotes which I shall 00:09:09.880 --> 00:09:11.140 align:middle line:90% signal during the reading-- 00:09:11.140 --> 00:09:13.300 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:09:13.300 --> 00:09:16.330 align:middle line:90% --this way. 00:09:16.330 --> 00:09:18.220 align:middle line:90% Gus's disappearance she said. 00:09:18.220 --> 00:09:22.420 align:middle line:84% Susan's radical younger half brother, Gus Seckler-Turner, 00:09:22.420 --> 00:09:27.460 align:middle line:84% went to Chile in 1973 to help oppose the CIA's and her father 00:09:27.460 --> 00:09:30.730 align:middle line:84% Manfred's successful efforts to destabilize 00:09:30.730 --> 00:09:32.650 align:middle line:84% the legally elected socialist government 00:09:32.650 --> 00:09:35.612 align:middle line:84% of the late President Salvador Allende Gossens. 00:09:35.612 --> 00:09:38.350 align:middle line:84% Since the military coup of that same year, 00:09:38.350 --> 00:09:41.560 align:middle line:84% Gus has been among the thousands of desaparecidos 00:09:41.560 --> 00:09:44.650 align:middle line:84% presumably tortured and executed by the present regime. 00:09:44.650 --> 00:09:49.790 align:middle line:90% 00:09:49.790 --> 00:09:51.680 align:middle line:90% The improbable is another thing. 00:09:51.680 --> 00:09:55.550 align:middle line:84% Manfred's doing a John Arthur Paisley on the heels of Paisley 00:09:55.550 --> 00:09:58.400 align:middle line:90% himself is bloody improbable. 00:09:58.400 --> 00:10:02.810 align:middle line:84% John Arthur Paisley is the nonfictional CIA ex officer 00:10:02.810 --> 00:10:05.810 align:middle line:84% and high level consultant who disappeared from his sloop 00:10:05.810 --> 00:10:09.920 align:middle line:84% Brillig into Chesapeake Bay in September 1978, 00:10:09.920 --> 00:10:12.080 align:middle line:84% and floated to the surface a week later 00:10:12.080 --> 00:10:15.260 align:middle line:84% with 39 pounds of scuba weights around his waist, 00:10:15.260 --> 00:10:19.340 align:middle line:84% and a 9mm bullet hole behind his left ear. 00:10:19.340 --> 00:10:23.120 align:middle line:84% Fenwick's brother Manfred, who is also Susan's stepfather, 00:10:23.120 --> 00:10:25.700 align:middle line:84% disappeared similarly the following spring 00:10:25.700 --> 00:10:28.940 align:middle line:84% from Fen and Susan's boat Pokey Wye I, 00:10:28.940 --> 00:10:30.380 align:middle line:90% but has never been found. 00:10:30.380 --> 00:10:34.550 align:middle line:90% 00:10:34.550 --> 00:10:37.760 align:middle line:84% But what we're after is the truly irreal, 00:10:37.760 --> 00:10:39.950 align:middle line:90% the literally marvelous. 00:10:39.950 --> 00:10:43.010 align:middle line:84% Can't we just do it, stone wall it? 00:10:43.010 --> 00:10:45.380 align:middle line:84% That's your answer to everything. 00:10:45.380 --> 00:10:48.020 align:middle line:84% Hey, look, there's a sea monster. 00:10:48.020 --> 00:10:48.815 align:middle line:90% There is not. 00:10:48.815 --> 00:10:50.180 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:10:50.180 --> 00:10:52.160 align:middle line:84% Suppose you and I reacted with as much 00:10:52.160 --> 00:10:54.920 align:middle line:84% incredulity as the reader, wouldn't that cover our tracks. 00:10:54.920 --> 00:10:57.680 align:middle line:84% Show me a sea monster see if I'm not incredulous. 00:10:57.680 --> 00:10:59.720 align:middle line:84% Yet, we won't be able to deny it even though we 00:10:59.720 --> 00:11:02.780 align:middle line:84% can't account for the reality of the irreality 00:11:02.780 --> 00:11:04.100 align:middle line:90% would be undeniable. 00:11:04.100 --> 00:11:06.260 align:middle line:90% We're home free. 00:11:06.260 --> 00:11:07.350 align:middle line:90% It won't work. 00:11:07.350 --> 00:11:10.050 align:middle line:84% You can have fabulous sea monsters or sperm 00:11:10.050 --> 00:11:11.300 align:middle line:90% and eggs that talk. 00:11:11.300 --> 00:11:13.550 align:middle line:84% You can have Fenwick and Susan, but you 00:11:13.550 --> 00:11:16.460 align:middle line:90% can't mix the two together. 00:11:16.460 --> 00:11:18.410 align:middle line:84% Scheherazade would, Shakespeare would, 00:11:18.410 --> 00:11:20.450 align:middle line:84% we can do anything we can do, Suse, 00:11:20.450 --> 00:11:23.780 align:middle line:84% and what we can't do as Fenn and Susan, we can do as author. 00:11:23.780 --> 00:11:26.510 align:middle line:90% 00:11:26.510 --> 00:11:28.580 align:middle line:84% Let's face it, neither one of us has personally 00:11:28.580 --> 00:11:31.790 align:middle line:84% [? experienced ?] one literally supernatural uncanny moment 00:11:31.790 --> 00:11:34.330 align:middle line:90% or event in our entire lifetime. 00:11:34.330 --> 00:11:36.050 align:middle line:90% It's ecstasy, sure. 00:11:36.050 --> 00:11:37.130 align:middle line:90% Ecstatic, sure. 00:11:37.130 --> 00:11:38.750 align:middle line:90% Uncanny like, sure. 00:11:38.750 --> 00:11:41.570 align:middle line:90% But literally marvelous, no. 00:11:41.570 --> 00:11:44.810 align:middle line:84% Yet, I won't have our story be unadulterated realism. 00:11:44.810 --> 00:11:46.160 align:middle line:90% Reality is wonderful. 00:11:46.160 --> 00:11:47.420 align:middle line:90% Reality is dreadful. 00:11:47.420 --> 00:11:49.040 align:middle line:90% Reality is what it is. 00:11:49.040 --> 00:11:50.945 align:middle line:90% But realism is a fucking bore. 00:11:50.945 --> 00:11:53.750 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:11:53.750 --> 00:11:54.290 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:11:54.290 --> 00:11:57.950 align:middle line:84% But we won't stoop to occultism or woozy neo-gothic, 00:11:57.950 --> 00:11:58.820 align:middle line:90% certainly not. 00:11:58.820 --> 00:12:02.320 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:12:02.320 --> 00:12:03.320 align:middle line:90% 00:12:03.320 --> 00:12:05.320 align:middle line:90% We have a problem. 00:12:05.320 --> 00:12:06.440 align:middle line:90% Yup. 00:12:06.440 --> 00:12:07.790 align:middle line:90% Odysseus has magic. 00:12:07.790 --> 00:12:09.620 align:middle line:90% Scheherazade has magic. 00:12:09.620 --> 00:12:11.180 align:middle line:90% Dante has miracles. 00:12:11.180 --> 00:12:13.680 align:middle line:90% What do we have? 00:12:13.680 --> 00:12:16.040 align:middle line:84% Well, Don Quixote has only his delusions. 00:12:16.040 --> 00:12:19.100 align:middle line:84% Huck Finn has only his superstitions. 00:12:19.100 --> 00:12:21.050 align:middle line:84% The literally marvelous is what we 00:12:21.050 --> 00:12:24.440 align:middle line:84% want with a healthy dose of realism to keep it ballasted. 00:12:24.440 --> 00:12:26.120 align:middle line:84% But at this hour of the world I guess 00:12:26.120 --> 00:12:29.960 align:middle line:84% we'll take whatever kind of marvelous we can manage. 00:12:29.960 --> 00:12:31.820 align:middle line:90% No compromises, Fenn. 00:12:31.820 --> 00:12:35.780 align:middle line:84% Seems to me it's all compromises in this business. 00:12:35.780 --> 00:12:37.310 align:middle line:90% Realism is the ballast. 00:12:37.310 --> 00:12:38.840 align:middle line:90% I like that. 00:12:38.840 --> 00:12:39.590 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:12:39.590 --> 00:12:42.320 align:middle line:84% Realism is your keel and ballast of your effing 00:12:42.320 --> 00:12:43.880 align:middle line:90% ship of stories, Suse. 00:12:43.880 --> 00:12:48.530 align:middle line:84% And a good plot is your mast and sails, but magic is your wind. 00:12:48.530 --> 00:12:52.550 align:middle line:84% Your literally marvelous is your mother effing wind. 00:12:52.550 --> 00:12:53.750 align:middle line:90% Now I'm hooked. 00:12:53.750 --> 00:12:56.600 align:middle line:84% I want to talk to Edgar Poe in our story. 00:12:56.600 --> 00:12:58.820 align:middle line:84% I want Gus and Manfred to come back. 00:12:58.820 --> 00:13:01.460 align:middle line:84% Mainly I want us to love each other forever and never 00:13:01.460 --> 00:13:03.380 align:middle line:90% quarrel, or get old, or die. 00:13:03.380 --> 00:13:05.930 align:middle line:84% I want to be a mother without having children. 00:13:05.930 --> 00:13:08.720 align:middle line:84% No, I want to have had children, to have been a mother. 00:13:08.720 --> 00:13:11.645 align:middle line:84% No, I want to be a grandmother without having had children. 00:13:11.645 --> 00:13:14.690 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:13:14.690 --> 00:13:16.070 align:middle line:90% 00:13:16.070 --> 00:13:17.210 align:middle line:90% I'd mess up children. 00:13:17.210 --> 00:13:20.360 align:middle line:90% How did I get on this subject? 00:13:20.360 --> 00:13:21.890 align:middle line:90% We better consult your mother. 00:13:21.890 --> 00:13:24.710 align:middle line:84% Magic is Carmen B Seckler's department. 00:13:24.710 --> 00:13:27.960 align:middle line:84% We'll talk about it when we're sailing again. 00:13:27.960 --> 00:13:29.840 align:middle line:90% I don't want to talk about it. 00:13:29.840 --> 00:13:33.170 align:middle line:84% I mean the problem of the literally marvelous. 00:13:33.170 --> 00:13:37.130 align:middle line:84% So do I. This note made, Fenn notes 00:13:37.130 --> 00:13:39.680 align:middle line:84% that his notes on our story, to which the notebook's 00:13:39.680 --> 00:13:41.630 align:middle line:84% principally devoted, have nearly all 00:13:41.630 --> 00:13:43.700 align:middle line:84% to do with such general considerations 00:13:43.700 --> 00:13:44.840 align:middle line:90% as the foregoing. 00:13:44.840 --> 00:13:48.530 align:middle line:84% Almost none he notes have to do, for example, with description. 00:13:48.530 --> 00:13:50.000 align:middle line:90% No bits of scenic detail. 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:52.730 align:middle line:84% No faces, gestures, rendered sensations. 00:13:52.730 --> 00:13:54.770 align:middle line:90% He makes a note of this fact. 00:13:54.770 --> 00:13:57.440 align:middle line:84% Here must be his short [? suit ?] as an aspiring 00:13:57.440 --> 00:13:58.490 align:middle line:90% writer of fiction. 00:13:58.490 --> 00:14:00.830 align:middle line:84% Indeed, when somewhere along Maryland 5, 00:14:00.830 --> 00:14:04.340 align:middle line:84% two Porsches pass the bus in quick succession, 00:14:04.340 --> 00:14:07.940 align:middle line:84% one the color of buttermilk and the other of cured tobacco, 00:14:07.940 --> 00:14:10.910 align:middle line:84% Fenn cannot summon better adjectives for them than 00:14:10.910 --> 00:14:12.710 align:middle line:90% yellowish white and brown. 00:14:12.710 --> 00:14:14.930 align:middle line:84% Though the highway at that moment happens to 00:14:14.930 --> 00:14:17.300 align:middle line:84% divide a tobacco from a dairy farm. 00:14:17.300 --> 00:14:20.570 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:14:20.570 --> 00:14:25.370 align:middle line:84% Discuss with Susan next time we're sailing. 00:14:25.370 --> 00:14:28.550 align:middle line:84% The bus makes a stop at Union Station where Fenn gets off. 00:14:28.550 --> 00:14:31.970 align:middle line:84% It's just 11:00 and a fine bright forenoon for walking. 00:14:31.970 --> 00:14:34.910 align:middle line:84% He heads down Delaware Avenue to Constitution, 00:14:34.910 --> 00:14:37.700 align:middle line:84% his heart divided as always at sight of the Capitol. 00:14:37.700 --> 00:14:40.790 align:middle line:84% That edifice too familiar, like the face of a parent, 00:14:40.790 --> 00:14:43.010 align:middle line:84% to be either handsome or otherwise. 00:14:43.010 --> 00:14:45.740 align:middle line:90% Between patriotism and dismay. 00:14:45.740 --> 00:14:48.740 align:middle line:84% Something he happened to read recently at sea together 00:14:48.740 --> 00:14:50.900 align:middle line:84% with Pokeys present berth, puts him 00:14:50.900 --> 00:14:53.900 align:middle line:84% in mind of that summer 166 years ago 00:14:53.900 --> 00:14:56.990 align:middle line:84% when a British fleet sailed up the Patuxent from Solomon's 00:14:56.990 --> 00:14:58.250 align:middle line:90% Island to Benedict. 00:14:58.250 --> 00:15:01.400 align:middle line:84% Unloaded an army, routed the panicky defenders-- 00:15:01.400 --> 00:15:04.010 align:middle line:84% among them Fenwick's middle name sake-- 00:15:04.010 --> 00:15:07.400 align:middle line:84% and burned the new Capitol and president's house. 00:15:07.400 --> 00:15:09.830 align:middle line:84% Francis Scott Key, Fenn has read, 00:15:09.830 --> 00:15:12.480 align:middle line:84% had had till then little use for his country, 00:15:12.480 --> 00:15:14.570 align:middle line:84% which he thought a vulgar democracy. 00:15:14.570 --> 00:15:18.110 align:middle line:84% But the spectacle of its symbolic destruction followed 00:15:18.110 --> 00:15:19.880 align:middle line:84% shortly after in Baltimore by that 00:15:19.880 --> 00:15:24.500 align:middle line:84% of its symbolic resurrection changed his mind and heart. 00:15:24.500 --> 00:15:27.320 align:middle line:84% More exactly, Fenn should say in Susan's opinion, 00:15:27.320 --> 00:15:30.050 align:middle line:84% its hoped for symbolic persistence. 00:15:30.050 --> 00:15:32.090 align:middle line:90% Key asks the question. 00:15:32.090 --> 00:15:35.460 align:middle line:84% Oh say does that star spangled banner, et cetera, 00:15:35.460 --> 00:15:38.640 align:middle line:84% but does not presume to answer it. 00:15:38.640 --> 00:15:40.590 align:middle line:84% Fenn's own heart is [INAUDIBLE] lifts 00:15:40.590 --> 00:15:42.870 align:middle line:84% at sight of the Supreme Court and the Library 00:15:42.870 --> 00:15:44.550 align:middle line:90% of Congress off to his left. 00:15:44.550 --> 00:15:47.400 align:middle line:84% The complex of museums along the mall. 00:15:47.400 --> 00:15:50.190 align:middle line:84% The memorials to Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln 00:15:50.190 --> 00:15:51.210 align:middle line:90% farther on. 00:15:51.210 --> 00:15:53.880 align:middle line:84% It sinks not for aesthetic reasons 00:15:53.880 --> 00:15:57.510 align:middle line:84% at sight of almost all the other federal buildings in view 00:15:57.510 --> 00:16:00.480 align:middle line:84% and positively constricts that thought 00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:04.200 align:middle line:84% of those ill chained dragons across the river in Arlington 00:16:04.200 --> 00:16:08.820 align:middle line:84% and Langley, the Pentagon, and his former employer. 00:16:08.820 --> 00:16:11.340 align:middle line:84% Not to mention the National Reconnaissance Office, 00:16:11.340 --> 00:16:13.920 align:middle line:84% an agency so secret that its very existence 00:16:13.920 --> 00:16:18.150 align:middle line:84% was denied until the 1970s and is still officially classified. 00:16:18.150 --> 00:16:21.840 align:middle line:84% As of our writing this footnote, March 3, 1981, 00:16:21.840 --> 00:16:25.290 align:middle line:84% whose 1980 budget was twice that of the CIA, 00:16:25.290 --> 00:16:27.810 align:middle line:84% in excess of $2 billion concealed 00:16:27.810 --> 00:16:29.610 align:middle line:90% in Air Force appropriations. 00:16:29.610 --> 00:16:31.410 align:middle line:84% And whose activities have included 00:16:31.410 --> 00:16:33.870 align:middle line:84% spying by satellite on US citizens 00:16:33.870 --> 00:16:36.240 align:middle line:84% in their own country such as demonstrators 00:16:36.240 --> 00:16:38.940 align:middle line:84% against the Vietnam War as well as foreigners 00:16:38.940 --> 00:16:40.920 align:middle line:90% in their countries see e.g. 00:16:40.920 --> 00:16:44.130 align:middle line:84% The New York Times, March 1 1980. 00:16:44.130 --> 00:16:47.970 align:middle line:84% He moves off the mall along Pennsylvania Avenue 00:16:47.970 --> 00:16:50.100 align:middle line:84% and detours up 11th Street to Woodward 00:16:50.100 --> 00:16:52.530 align:middle line:84% and Lothrop's department store to look 00:16:52.530 --> 00:16:54.360 align:middle line:90% for something for Susan. 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:57.610 align:middle line:84% Ends up buying a beret for himself instead, 00:16:57.610 --> 00:17:01.590 align:middle line:84% an Anglobasque boina made in England but it will do. 00:17:01.590 --> 00:17:06.329 align:middle line:84% According to the 1980 census the Washington DC Metropolitan area 00:17:06.329 --> 00:17:08.520 align:middle line:84% is home to more than two million people. 00:17:08.520 --> 00:17:12.780 align:middle line:84% It's visited by more than 50,000 tourists on an average day. 00:17:12.780 --> 00:17:15.540 align:middle line:84% There are two other customers that Woodward and Lothrop 00:17:15.540 --> 00:17:16.770 align:middle line:90% Beret counter. 00:17:16.770 --> 00:17:20.369 align:middle line:84% One, a lady, leaves just as Fenn arrives. 00:17:20.369 --> 00:17:24.420 align:middle line:84% The other, a gentleman, arrives just as Fenn is leaving. 00:17:24.420 --> 00:17:27.060 align:middle line:84% No mathematician, Fenn will nonetheless 00:17:27.060 --> 00:17:31.140 align:middle line:84% calculate once he finds an almanac, that gender aside, 00:17:31.140 --> 00:17:33.090 align:middle line:84% the odds against one of those 2's 00:17:33.090 --> 00:17:38.280 align:middle line:84% being Dugald Taylor are at least 1,025,000 to 1. 00:17:38.280 --> 00:17:41.130 align:middle line:84% Yet the gentlemen arriver as Fenn is leaving 00:17:41.130 --> 00:17:43.350 align:middle line:84% is his old friend and mentor, come 00:17:43.350 --> 00:17:47.490 align:middle line:84% to buy a hat for his impending journey to Australia. 00:17:47.490 --> 00:17:49.890 align:middle line:90% Describe Doog Taylor. 00:17:49.890 --> 00:17:53.250 align:middle line:84% Bald and gray like Fenn, but beardless, smooth, 00:17:53.250 --> 00:17:56.910 align:middle line:84% 10 years older, unathletic, more plump than husky. 00:17:56.910 --> 00:18:00.510 align:middle line:84% From an antique Maryland family of Scottish origin, 00:18:00.510 --> 00:18:01.710 align:middle line:90% that's description. 00:18:01.710 --> 00:18:03.570 align:middle line:84% Nearly every male member of which 00:18:03.570 --> 00:18:06.270 align:middle line:84% since 1830 has educated at Princeton 00:18:06.270 --> 00:18:09.060 align:middle line:84% and read law at Virginia, though fewer than half 00:18:09.060 --> 00:18:11.670 align:middle line:84% have practiced that profession more than briefly. 00:18:11.670 --> 00:18:14.040 align:middle line:84% Career civil servants, the most of them. 00:18:14.040 --> 00:18:16.770 align:middle line:84% Chargés d'affaires, assistant attorneys 00:18:16.770 --> 00:18:19.830 align:middle line:84% general, under secretaries of this and that. 00:18:19.830 --> 00:18:22.530 align:middle line:84% A Taylor, Dugald once explained to Fenwick 00:18:22.530 --> 00:18:25.590 align:middle line:84% upon declining a presidential request that he succeed 00:18:25.590 --> 00:18:28.620 align:middle line:84% Richard Helms as director of the CIA, 00:18:28.620 --> 00:18:31.380 align:middle line:84% may wish to be a concertmaster but has 00:18:31.380 --> 00:18:33.690 align:middle line:90% no taste for conducting. 00:18:33.690 --> 00:18:35.490 align:middle line:90% Is that description? 00:18:35.490 --> 00:18:38.490 align:middle line:84% Twinkly, portly, courtly, immaculate, unmarried, 00:18:38.490 --> 00:18:40.740 align:middle line:90% delicately nerved-- 00:18:40.740 --> 00:18:42.190 align:middle line:90% Doog. 00:18:42.190 --> 00:18:43.290 align:middle line:90% Fenn. 00:18:43.290 --> 00:18:44.940 align:middle line:90% The men embrace. 00:18:44.940 --> 00:18:47.700 align:middle line:84% Susan tells me, Fenwick tells Dugald, 00:18:47.700 --> 00:18:51.090 align:middle line:84% that improbable incidents may begin a story in as much 00:18:51.090 --> 00:18:54.780 align:middle line:84% as life in fact comprises an occasional unlikelihood. 00:18:54.780 --> 00:18:57.270 align:middle line:84% But to invoke one to wind up a plot 00:18:57.270 --> 00:18:59.670 align:middle line:90% is to invoke the God on wires. 00:18:59.670 --> 00:19:03.660 align:middle line:84% You and I must be beginning a new story together. 00:19:03.660 --> 00:19:07.710 align:middle line:84% Dugald replies at once, or else our world is run by the God 00:19:07.710 --> 00:19:09.780 align:middle line:90% on wires. 00:19:09.780 --> 00:19:10.755 align:middle line:90% Where's my Susan? 00:19:10.755 --> 00:19:13.830 align:middle line:90% 00:19:13.830 --> 00:19:16.380 align:middle line:84% She kisses you from Solomon's Island. 00:19:16.380 --> 00:19:18.570 align:middle line:90% You wear boinas now? 00:19:18.570 --> 00:19:22.035 align:middle line:84% Only in the outback, Doog says softly. 00:19:22.035 --> 00:19:23.790 align:middle line:90% Ah so, Perth. 00:19:23.790 --> 00:19:26.340 align:middle line:90% All roads lead to Perth. 00:19:26.340 --> 00:19:30.030 align:middle line:84% Some by design, others by coincidence. 00:19:30.030 --> 00:19:31.470 align:middle line:90% Ours by way of the cosmos. 00:19:31.470 --> 00:19:34.560 align:middle line:84% We're big on coincidence today, Dugald. 00:19:34.560 --> 00:19:37.350 align:middle line:84% Doog buys a Navy blue beret and says, 00:19:37.350 --> 00:19:39.330 align:middle line:90% so is the lowercase cosmos. 00:19:39.330 --> 00:19:40.830 align:middle line:90% Don't knock coincidence. 00:19:40.830 --> 00:19:42.420 align:middle line:90% He checks his pocket watch. 00:19:42.420 --> 00:19:43.440 align:middle line:90% Lets stroll. 00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:45.960 align:middle line:84% The big C won't hold our table long. 00:19:45.960 --> 00:19:49.380 align:middle line:84% They stroll West on G to Lafayette Square and the White 00:19:49.380 --> 00:19:49.890 align:middle line:90% House. 00:19:49.890 --> 00:19:52.350 align:middle line:84% Then take a taxi up Connecticut Circle. 00:19:52.350 --> 00:19:55.110 align:middle line:84% Then stroll again the two blocks out in Massachusetts 00:19:55.110 --> 00:19:57.360 align:middle line:90% to the Cosmos Club. 00:19:57.360 --> 00:20:00.300 align:middle line:84% Did you know for example, speaking of coincidence, 00:20:00.300 --> 00:20:03.690 align:middle line:84% Dugald continues, that one of our senior counterintelligence 00:20:03.690 --> 00:20:07.050 align:middle line:84% people in Western Europe is a man named Goldfinger. 00:20:07.050 --> 00:20:09.420 align:middle line:90% I mean, that is his real name. 00:20:09.420 --> 00:20:11.310 align:middle line:84% Did you know that Arthur Bremer has 00:20:11.310 --> 00:20:13.920 align:middle line:84% a sister who once worked in the same establishment 00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:15.990 align:middle line:90% as Sirhan Sirhan. 00:20:15.990 --> 00:20:20.070 align:middle line:84% You can imagine the FBI'S double take at that particular datum. 00:20:20.070 --> 00:20:23.290 align:middle line:84% But apparently it's pure coincidence. 00:20:23.290 --> 00:20:26.040 align:middle line:84% It's a wise man, Fenn acknowledges, 00:20:26.040 --> 00:20:28.530 align:middle line:84% who knows his Woodward and Lothrop from his Woodward 00:20:28.530 --> 00:20:31.680 align:middle line:90% and Bernstein. 00:20:31.680 --> 00:20:34.120 align:middle line:84% Dugald Taylor, I keep forgetting how young 00:20:34.120 --> 00:20:35.800 align:middle line:90% my audience is sometimes. 00:20:35.800 --> 00:20:37.840 align:middle line:84% Dugald Taylor's topical allusions 00:20:37.840 --> 00:20:41.890 align:middle line:84% in order for readers with short memories or of few years: 00:20:41.890 --> 00:20:45.160 align:middle line:84% the eponymous villain of an Ian Fleming spy novel. 00:20:45.160 --> 00:20:47.500 align:middle line:84% The would be assassin of then-governor George 00:20:47.500 --> 00:20:51.280 align:middle line:84% Wallace of Alabama in Laurel, Maryland in 1972. 00:20:51.280 --> 00:20:53.620 align:middle line:84% The successful assassin of Robert F Kennedy 00:20:53.620 --> 00:20:56.230 align:middle line:90% in Los Angeles, born in 1968. 00:20:56.230 --> 00:20:59.470 align:middle line:84% Fenn is to the then Washington Post investigative reporters 00:20:59.470 --> 00:21:01.900 align:middle line:84% instrumental in exposing the Watergate scandal, which 00:21:01.900 --> 00:21:04.240 align:middle line:90% undid President Nixon. 00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:07.510 align:middle line:84% The Cosmos has held Doog's table. 00:21:07.510 --> 00:21:10.060 align:middle line:84% Over cold cucumber soup and Sancerre, 00:21:10.060 --> 00:21:13.150 align:middle line:84% each man inquires as to the other's heart. 00:21:13.150 --> 00:21:17.560 align:middle line:84% Taylor shares with Turner one serious cardiac episode, 00:21:17.560 --> 00:21:20.980 align:middle line:84% but unlike his protege has not quit smoking. 00:21:20.980 --> 00:21:22.990 align:middle line:90% Both are OK. 00:21:22.990 --> 00:21:26.170 align:middle line:84% It is organ day at the Cosmos Club. 00:21:26.170 --> 00:21:28.570 align:middle line:90% Pink Dugald orders brains. 00:21:28.570 --> 00:21:31.360 align:middle line:90% Brown Fenwick, sweetbread. 00:21:31.360 --> 00:21:34.150 align:middle line:90% They sip the sharp Sancerre. 00:21:34.150 --> 00:21:37.090 align:middle line:84% In reply to his friend's next inquiry, 00:21:37.090 --> 00:21:39.760 align:middle line:84% Fenn briefly describes our sabbatical cruise 00:21:39.760 --> 00:21:41.770 align:middle line:84% and finds himself uncharacteristically 00:21:41.770 --> 00:21:44.710 align:middle line:84% in Dugald's company rhapsodizing tersely-- 00:21:44.710 --> 00:21:45.850 align:middle line:90% it can be done-- 00:21:45.850 --> 00:21:48.670 align:middle line:90% about the Caribbean. 00:21:48.670 --> 00:21:52.570 align:middle line:84% Susan has taught you to be less cool, Doog remarks approvingly. 00:21:52.570 --> 00:21:54.400 align:middle line:90% My compliments. 00:21:54.400 --> 00:21:56.500 align:middle line:84% Quite permissible for us ex-officers. 00:21:56.500 --> 00:21:58.210 align:middle line:90% Hello there, Henry. 00:21:58.210 --> 00:22:01.930 align:middle line:84% Fenn smiles and waves across the Cosmos to a sharp faced 00:22:01.930 --> 00:22:05.770 align:middle line:84% bespectacled clerky looking chap in three-piece summer worsted, 00:22:05.770 --> 00:22:08.680 align:middle line:84% their mutual former colleague from Branch 5-- 00:22:08.680 --> 00:22:11.770 align:middle line:84% the Southern Cone-- of the Western hemisphere division 00:22:11.770 --> 00:22:13.210 align:middle line:90% at Langley. 00:22:13.210 --> 00:22:16.450 align:middle line:84% That fellow, just entering, attaché case in hand, 00:22:16.450 --> 00:22:19.480 align:middle line:84% responds with an almost ballet like expression 00:22:19.480 --> 00:22:22.960 align:middle line:84% of incredulity and contempt followed by a reproving 00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:25.120 align:middle line:90% glare at Dugald Taylor. 00:22:25.120 --> 00:22:29.110 align:middle line:84% Then sets his face and stalks into another room. 00:22:29.110 --> 00:22:30.520 align:middle line:90% Goodness, says Fenwick. 00:22:30.520 --> 00:22:32.170 align:middle line:90% His own face stinging. 00:22:32.170 --> 00:22:34.270 align:middle line:84% I knew which way the wind was blowing but I 00:22:34.270 --> 00:22:37.270 align:middle line:90% didn't imagine it was Force 10. 00:22:37.270 --> 00:22:39.550 align:middle line:84% Dugald says evenly, you know Marcus. 00:22:39.550 --> 00:22:42.130 align:middle line:84% In his heart he's still OSS parachuting 00:22:42.130 --> 00:22:44.800 align:middle line:90% into occupied France. 00:22:44.800 --> 00:22:46.150 align:middle line:90% With you, Doog. 00:22:46.150 --> 00:22:49.990 align:middle line:84% I'm surprised you'll be seen with me, especially here. 00:22:49.990 --> 00:22:52.810 align:middle line:84% Shame on you then, Dugald says mildly. 00:22:52.810 --> 00:22:56.410 align:middle line:84% The rebuke does double duty for Fenwick having published 00:22:56.410 --> 00:23:00.490 align:middle line:84% KUDOVE, the CIA's crypto-name for its client services 00:23:00.490 --> 00:23:01.210 align:middle line:90% division. 00:23:01.210 --> 00:23:03.970 align:middle line:84% Fenn's book concentrates on company operations 00:23:03.970 --> 00:23:05.650 align:middle line:90% in Iran and Chile. 00:23:05.650 --> 00:23:07.690 align:middle line:84% And for his imagining that his friend would 00:23:07.690 --> 00:23:10.690 align:middle line:84% shun him therefore, however much Doog 00:23:10.690 --> 00:23:12.880 align:middle line:90% might deplore the publication. 00:23:12.880 --> 00:23:16.780 align:middle line:84% A Taylor may promulgate the most stinging in-house critiques; 00:23:16.780 --> 00:23:20.710 align:middle line:84% one of Dugald's ancestors on corruption in the US post 00:23:20.710 --> 00:23:23.110 align:middle line:84% office under McKinley is legendary 00:23:23.110 --> 00:23:25.510 align:middle line:84% and is said to have led Theodore Roosevelt to appoint 00:23:25.510 --> 00:23:28.690 align:middle line:84% Charles Joseph Bonaparte to house clean that Bureau. 00:23:28.690 --> 00:23:31.540 align:middle line:90% But one does not go public. 00:23:31.540 --> 00:23:35.230 align:middle line:84% Not so, Fenn insists to himself at the moment, 00:23:35.230 --> 00:23:37.600 align:middle line:84% but to Dugald more than once in time past: 00:23:37.600 --> 00:23:40.540 align:middle line:84% Simply one doesn't go public as a first resort. 00:23:40.540 --> 00:23:43.352 align:middle line:84% You know how my in-house reports fared. 00:23:43.352 --> 00:23:45.310 align:middle line:84% You know how the company tried everything short 00:23:45.310 --> 00:23:48.310 align:middle line:84% of actual dirty tricks to stop Marchetti, and Marks, 00:23:48.310 --> 00:23:50.290 align:middle line:84% and Philip Agee, and Kermit Roosevelt, 00:23:50.290 --> 00:23:51.850 align:middle line:90% and me from going public. 00:23:51.850 --> 00:23:55.180 align:middle line:84% Kermit is the grandson of the aforementioned Theodore, 00:23:55.180 --> 00:23:58.600 align:middle line:84% a former CIA officer and author of Countercoup: 00:23:58.600 --> 00:24:00.880 align:middle line:84% The Struggle For Control Of Iran, 00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:02.800 align:middle line:90% New York, McGraw-Hill 1980. 00:24:02.800 --> 00:24:06.280 align:middle line:84% Review of the roles of the CIA and its British counterpart 00:24:06.280 --> 00:24:09.400 align:middle line:84% in overthrowing prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq of Iran 00:24:09.400 --> 00:24:14.410 align:middle line:84% in 1953 and replacing him with the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. 00:24:14.410 --> 00:24:18.220 align:middle line:84% Susan thinks Fenn mistaken in his inclusion of Mr. Roosevelt 00:24:18.220 --> 00:24:19.960 align:middle line:90% in this catalog. 00:24:19.960 --> 00:24:24.040 align:middle line:84% According to the New York Times, November 13, 1979. 00:24:24.040 --> 00:24:26.770 align:middle line:84% McGraw-Hill scrapping of the whole first edition 00:24:26.770 --> 00:24:29.740 align:middle line:84% of Countercoup was prompted more by objections 00:24:29.740 --> 00:24:32.380 align:middle line:84% from British Petroleum whom the Times reports 00:24:32.380 --> 00:24:35.860 align:middle line:84% as owning a 40% interest in the Iranian oil consortium. 00:24:35.860 --> 00:24:38.170 align:middle line:84% And who the book alleges provided cover 00:24:38.170 --> 00:24:41.500 align:middle line:84% through its predecessor company, Anglo-Iranian Oil, 00:24:41.500 --> 00:24:44.230 align:middle line:84% for British covert operations in Iran 00:24:44.230 --> 00:24:47.230 align:middle line:84% rather than by direct objections from the CIA. 00:24:47.230 --> 00:24:49.870 align:middle line:84% A better candidate in Susan's opinion 00:24:49.870 --> 00:24:52.270 align:middle line:84% would be the unfortunate Frank Snepp, 00:24:52.270 --> 00:24:55.180 align:middle line:84% author of Decent Interval: An Insider's Account 00:24:55.180 --> 00:24:59.170 align:middle line:84% of Saigon's Indecent End Told by the CIA's Chief Strategy 00:24:59.170 --> 00:25:03.640 align:middle line:84% Analyst in Vietnam, New York, Random House, 1977. 00:25:03.640 --> 00:25:06.940 align:middle line:84% My book didn't get anybody killed, Fenn says aloud. 00:25:06.940 --> 00:25:09.730 align:middle line:84% If it crimped a few career-- quashed a few operations 00:25:09.730 --> 00:25:12.250 align:middle line:90% so much the better. 00:25:12.250 --> 00:25:15.370 align:middle line:84% Dugald replies, my compliments again on your prose. 00:25:15.370 --> 00:25:16.540 align:middle line:90% You do write well. 00:25:16.540 --> 00:25:18.940 align:middle line:90% How's the novel coming? 00:25:18.940 --> 00:25:20.200 align:middle line:90% Fenn won't have the evasion. 00:25:20.200 --> 00:25:21.380 align:middle line:90% It's not the same thing. 00:25:21.380 --> 00:25:23.260 align:middle line:90% Can we talk here, Doog? 00:25:23.260 --> 00:25:24.580 align:middle line:90% His friend smiles. 00:25:24.580 --> 00:25:27.340 align:middle line:84% That's why I suggested the Cosmos, safest place 00:25:27.340 --> 00:25:29.650 align:middle line:84% in town outside of an embassy code room, 00:25:29.650 --> 00:25:31.155 align:middle line:90% once the entrée is served. 00:25:31.155 --> 00:25:32.850 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:25:32.850 --> 00:25:33.660 align:middle line:90% It is. 00:25:33.660 --> 00:25:37.290 align:middle line:84% The waiter, Argentine-German, urges the young Beaujolais 00:25:37.290 --> 00:25:40.830 align:middle line:84% but the Sancerre is only half gone and will quite do. 00:25:40.830 --> 00:25:42.960 align:middle line:84% Dugald Taylor speaks now at length 00:25:42.960 --> 00:25:46.470 align:middle line:84% quietly over his brains and fresh asparagus. 00:25:46.470 --> 00:25:49.140 align:middle line:84% Beyond doubt Fenn's book and its predecessors 00:25:49.140 --> 00:25:51.960 align:middle line:84% along with the general public and congressional reaction 00:25:51.960 --> 00:25:54.510 align:middle line:84% against our Vietnamese, and Chilean adventures, 00:25:54.510 --> 00:25:57.780 align:middle line:84% and the Watergate fiasco, contributed to the lowering 00:25:57.780 --> 00:25:59.070 align:middle line:90% of agency morale. 00:25:59.070 --> 00:26:01.500 align:middle line:84% And the reining in of its covert operations 00:26:01.500 --> 00:26:03.900 align:middle line:90% in the middle and latter 1970s. 00:26:03.900 --> 00:26:06.750 align:middle line:84% Resignations and early retirements, Dugald's own 00:26:06.750 --> 00:26:08.760 align:middle line:90% included, ran high. 00:26:08.760 --> 00:26:11.250 align:middle line:84% Recruitment of able trainees Marcus [INAUDIBLE] 00:26:11.250 --> 00:26:13.710 align:middle line:84% of these days, grew increasingly difficult 00:26:13.710 --> 00:26:17.050 align:middle line:84% despite the poor national job market for college graduates, 00:26:17.050 --> 00:26:18.990 align:middle line:90% especially in the liberal arts. 00:26:18.990 --> 00:26:21.690 align:middle line:84% The better Catholic universities such as Notre Dame, 00:26:21.690 --> 00:26:24.570 align:middle line:84% and Fordham, which had long since replaced the Ivy 00:26:24.570 --> 00:26:26.610 align:middle line:84% League as prime recruiting ground, 00:26:26.610 --> 00:26:29.760 align:middle line:84% and to which by the middle 1960s were added to better 00:26:29.760 --> 00:26:32.250 align:middle line:84% land-grant universities had themselves 00:26:32.250 --> 00:26:34.620 align:middle line:84% given way, faute de mieux, more and more 00:26:34.620 --> 00:26:36.870 align:middle line:90% to street car Catholic colleges. 00:26:36.870 --> 00:26:39.240 align:middle line:84% Your local Loyolas and Canisiuses, 00:26:39.240 --> 00:26:42.300 align:middle line:84% to branch campuses of the state complexes. 00:26:42.300 --> 00:26:44.460 align:middle line:90% Ogontz, New Paltz, Ypsilanti. 00:26:44.460 --> 00:26:47.160 align:middle line:84% Even to community colleges, Catonsville, 00:26:47.160 --> 00:26:51.690 align:middle line:84% Harrisburg area, West Liberty, where patriotism still 00:26:51.690 --> 00:26:55.080 align:middle line:84% runs high among blue collar children with white collar 00:26:55.080 --> 00:26:56.520 align:middle line:90% aspirations. 00:26:56.520 --> 00:26:59.760 align:middle line:84% But economic inflation, the lapsing of Soviet American 00:26:59.760 --> 00:27:00.420 align:middle line:90% détente. 00:27:00.420 --> 00:27:03.570 align:middle line:84% The convenient bugaboo of the Ayatollah Khomeini. 00:27:03.570 --> 00:27:07.080 align:middle line:84% The protracted holding of the American hostages in Iran 00:27:07.080 --> 00:27:10.410 align:middle line:84% and a new post-Vietnam generation of undergraduates 00:27:10.410 --> 00:27:12.660 align:middle line:84% have effectively reversed that trend 00:27:12.660 --> 00:27:14.520 align:middle line:90% both on the campus and Congress. 00:27:14.520 --> 00:27:17.130 align:middle line:84% He, Dugald, does not have to tell Fenwick 00:27:17.130 --> 00:27:20.400 align:middle line:84% that all the half-baked novelists in the land, and not 00:27:20.400 --> 00:27:22.620 align:middle line:84% a few full baked ones, are writing 00:27:22.620 --> 00:27:24.480 align:middle line:90% spy novels, for example. 00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:26.430 align:middle line:84% Many of which, like the latest crop 00:27:26.430 --> 00:27:29.340 align:middle line:84% of tsk-tsk exposes of the agency, 00:27:29.340 --> 00:27:33.180 align:middle line:84% barely conceal their fascination and envy beneath their knee 00:27:33.180 --> 00:27:36.480 align:middle line:84% jerk moralizing against our skullduggery. 00:27:36.480 --> 00:27:41.100 align:middle line:84% Fenn's will not, he trusts, be another CIA novel. 00:27:41.100 --> 00:27:43.590 align:middle line:90% Decidedly not, Fenn promises. 00:27:43.590 --> 00:27:47.160 align:middle line:84% That is almost the only thing he can say for sure about it. 00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:50.040 align:middle line:84% But he cannot promise that the likes of certain of his 00:27:50.040 --> 00:27:53.430 align:middle line:84% colleagues will not drift through it from time to time 00:27:53.430 --> 00:27:56.050 align:middle line:90% on the narrative tide. 00:27:56.050 --> 00:27:59.820 align:middle line:84% Dugald lifts his glass to the metaphor and continues. 00:27:59.820 --> 00:28:03.450 align:middle line:84% In short, the lads in Langley and more and more the lasses, 00:28:03.450 --> 00:28:05.250 align:middle line:84% an important new area of recruitment 00:28:05.250 --> 00:28:08.280 align:middle line:84% as Fenn might have heard, are prospering again, 00:28:08.280 --> 00:28:10.680 align:middle line:84% and gearing up for new covert operations 00:28:10.680 --> 00:28:13.950 align:middle line:84% in the 1980s, whoever wins the November election. 00:28:13.950 --> 00:28:16.500 align:middle line:84% It is Dugald's understanding that both the CIA 00:28:16.500 --> 00:28:20.130 align:middle line:84% and the Pentagon are reviving chemical biological warfare 00:28:20.130 --> 00:28:23.730 align:middle line:84% research, almost dormant since the latter 1960s, 00:28:23.730 --> 00:28:26.250 align:middle line:84% on the strength of recent Soviet applications 00:28:26.250 --> 00:28:28.890 align:middle line:90% of such weapons in Afghanistan. 00:28:28.890 --> 00:28:31.560 align:middle line:84% We are particularly excited, Dugald 00:28:31.560 --> 00:28:34.740 align:middle line:84% uses the pronoun with poker faced irony, 00:28:34.740 --> 00:28:37.620 align:middle line:84% about new developments in molecular biology. 00:28:37.620 --> 00:28:40.770 align:middle line:84% He understands us to be either funding indirectly 00:28:40.770 --> 00:28:44.160 align:middle line:84% or investigating the feasibility of a number of gene splicing 00:28:44.160 --> 00:28:47.580 align:middle line:84% projects to the end of designing viruses for which there 00:28:47.580 --> 00:28:51.450 align:middle line:84% are no antibodies, or for which only we possess the antibodies. 00:28:51.450 --> 00:28:54.870 align:middle line:84% But he cannot vouch for this matter firsthand. 00:28:54.870 --> 00:28:58.950 align:middle line:84% Legionnaires' disease, by Fenn's friend's best information, 00:28:58.950 --> 00:29:01.050 align:middle line:90% was not one of our experiments. 00:29:01.050 --> 00:29:05.190 align:middle line:84% Serious Soviet contentions to the contrary notwithstanding. 00:29:05.190 --> 00:29:07.980 align:middle line:84% Admittedly there would have been a dandy cover. 00:29:07.980 --> 00:29:10.110 align:middle line:84% Who would have suspected even us, 00:29:10.110 --> 00:29:13.440 align:middle line:84% despite the precedence of our spraying San Francisco 00:29:13.440 --> 00:29:15.960 align:middle line:84% with the test strain of respiratory bacillus 00:29:15.960 --> 00:29:17.130 align:middle line:90% in the late '60s? 00:29:17.130 --> 00:29:19.260 align:middle line:84% And of our sundry experiments upon [? 00:29:19.260 --> 00:29:22.350 align:middle line:84% unwed veterans ?] in Veterans Administration hospitals, 00:29:22.350 --> 00:29:25.260 align:middle line:84% of experimenting upon an American Legion convention 00:29:25.260 --> 00:29:28.500 align:middle line:84% in the cradle of liberty, the city of brotherly love. 00:29:28.500 --> 00:29:30.030 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:29:30.030 --> 00:29:33.060 align:middle line:84% To be sure, we shall not employ our patent viruses 00:29:33.060 --> 00:29:34.920 align:middle line:84% for individual assassinations, we 00:29:34.920 --> 00:29:37.860 align:middle line:84% have an ample inventory of devices for that purpose. 00:29:37.860 --> 00:29:41.160 align:middle line:84% Several of them developed since Fenwick's day. 00:29:41.160 --> 00:29:45.000 align:middle line:84% But to eliminate a small cohesive group, an encampment 00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:48.390 align:middle line:84% of guerrillas, say, a properly antibiotic mole 00:29:48.390 --> 00:29:51.000 align:middle line:84% could administer a literal kiss of death. 00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:53.430 align:middle line:90% The wonders of science. 00:29:53.430 --> 00:29:56.580 align:middle line:84% The mention of moles brings Fenwick's erstwhile mentor 00:29:56.580 --> 00:30:00.330 align:middle line:84% over coffee and cigar now to Manfred, who in certain areas 00:30:00.330 --> 00:30:01.890 align:middle line:90% had been his mentor. 00:30:01.890 --> 00:30:04.800 align:middle line:84% He, Dugald, can tell all he knows on this head 00:30:04.800 --> 00:30:07.990 align:middle line:84% without fear of being lip read say, from across the room, 00:30:07.990 --> 00:30:08.820 align:middle line:90% he declares. 00:30:08.820 --> 00:30:11.160 align:middle line:84% For he knows only that there are two schools of thought 00:30:11.160 --> 00:30:13.020 align:middle line:84% among his professional acquaintances 00:30:13.020 --> 00:30:15.960 align:middle line:84% concerning Manfred's Paisley like disappearance 00:30:15.960 --> 00:30:17.460 align:middle line:90% and they are the obvious. 00:30:17.460 --> 00:30:20.850 align:middle line:84% That Fenn's twin accidentally or on assignment 00:30:20.850 --> 00:30:22.890 align:middle line:84% had discovered the [? moles ?] still believed 00:30:22.890 --> 00:30:26.220 align:middle line:84% to inhabit the agency despite operation Kitty Hawk 00:30:26.220 --> 00:30:29.910 align:middle line:84% and had been neutralized by agents either of the KGB 00:30:29.910 --> 00:30:31.830 align:middle line:90% or of the mole him/herself. 00:30:31.830 --> 00:30:35.300 align:middle line:84% Or that Manfred was the mole and had been neutralized 00:30:35.300 --> 00:30:37.910 align:middle line:84% by the team who discovered him so to be, 00:30:37.910 --> 00:30:40.820 align:middle line:84% whether killed or sequestered constituted 00:30:40.820 --> 00:30:43.400 align:middle line:90% two sub-schools of opinion. 00:30:43.400 --> 00:30:46.880 align:middle line:84% It is not generally felt, though Dugald himself does not 00:30:46.880 --> 00:30:49.970 align:middle line:84% dismiss the possibility that John Arthur Paisley's 00:30:49.970 --> 00:30:54.560 align:middle line:84% nautical suicide simply inspired Manfred Turner to follow suit 00:30:54.560 --> 00:30:56.000 align:middle line:90% for whatever reason. 00:30:56.000 --> 00:30:59.270 align:middle line:84% Nautical suicide is Dugald Taylor's term, 00:30:59.270 --> 00:31:02.720 align:middle line:84% he and Fenwick are of the same mind on this difficult matter. 00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:04.610 align:middle line:84% It is a pity that he does not indicate 00:31:04.610 --> 00:31:06.980 align:middle line:84% whether knowledgeable people in the agency 00:31:06.980 --> 00:31:09.830 align:middle line:84% and on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 00:31:09.830 --> 00:31:12.950 align:middle line:90% share their opinions. 00:31:12.950 --> 00:31:17.210 align:middle line:84% I don't dismiss that possibility either, Doog. 00:31:17.210 --> 00:31:18.590 align:middle line:90% You don't. 00:31:18.590 --> 00:31:20.660 align:middle line:84% Do you know of any reasons Manfred might 00:31:20.660 --> 00:31:23.270 align:middle line:90% have had for killing himself? 00:31:23.270 --> 00:31:26.690 align:middle line:84% Fenn recognizes his friend's [INAUDIBLE] to be professional 00:31:26.690 --> 00:31:29.600 align:middle line:84% by replying straightforwardly that he knows of none 00:31:29.600 --> 00:31:31.370 align:middle line:84% but had been distant from his brother 00:31:31.370 --> 00:31:33.860 align:middle line:84% since leaving the company and writing KUDOVE. 00:31:33.860 --> 00:31:37.070 align:middle line:84% Instead of asking whether Dugald is currently an agency 00:31:37.070 --> 00:31:40.640 align:middle line:84% consultant, he signals his understanding and acceptance 00:31:40.640 --> 00:31:42.960 align:middle line:90% of this state of affairs. 00:31:42.960 --> 00:31:45.860 align:middle line:90% Dugald nods, and sighs. 00:31:45.860 --> 00:31:48.260 align:middle line:90% We don't know of any either. 00:31:48.260 --> 00:31:49.760 align:middle line:90% Thanks Doog. 00:31:49.760 --> 00:31:51.950 align:middle line:84% I can't really imagine that Manfred would have used 00:31:51.950 --> 00:31:53.450 align:middle line:90% Pokey to kill himself from. 00:31:53.450 --> 00:31:54.800 align:middle line:90% He knew I loved that boat. 00:31:54.800 --> 00:31:58.040 align:middle line:84% He knew that Susan and I were planning our sabbatical cruise 00:31:58.040 --> 00:31:58.700 align:middle line:90% in it. 00:31:58.700 --> 00:32:00.590 align:middle line:84% I'd have sold the thing after his death 00:32:00.590 --> 00:32:02.840 align:middle line:84% if it weren't the boat Susan seduced me on. 00:32:02.840 --> 00:32:04.520 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:32:04.520 --> 00:32:06.890 align:middle line:90% I see. 00:32:06.890 --> 00:32:09.380 align:middle line:84% Manny could hold a grudge but he wasn't spiteful 00:32:09.380 --> 00:32:10.550 align:middle line:90% and he loved his family. 00:32:10.550 --> 00:32:13.370 align:middle line:84% Either somebody got to him or he drowned accidentally 00:32:13.370 --> 00:32:15.380 align:middle line:84% and happened not to get found like Paisley. 00:32:15.380 --> 00:32:17.990 align:middle line:90% Was he the mole, Doog? 00:32:17.990 --> 00:32:19.340 align:middle line:90% No. 00:32:19.340 --> 00:32:22.550 align:middle line:84% A mole, possibly, though I strongly believe not. 00:32:22.550 --> 00:32:24.845 align:middle line:90% But not the mole. 00:32:24.845 --> 00:32:28.130 align:middle line:84% The reader will have appreciated Fenwick's inflecting 00:32:28.130 --> 00:32:30.440 align:middle line:90% in declaratively Taylor fashion. 00:32:30.440 --> 00:32:33.950 align:middle line:84% Is to be appreciated further that Dugald having replied 00:32:33.950 --> 00:32:36.140 align:middle line:84% unhesitatingly and unequivocally, it 00:32:36.140 --> 00:32:38.750 align:middle line:84% would be improper for Fenn to ask additionally 00:32:38.750 --> 00:32:41.180 align:middle line:84% out of mere curiosity what his friend appears 00:32:41.180 --> 00:32:45.170 align:middle line:90% to know who the mole might be. 00:32:45.170 --> 00:32:48.620 align:middle line:84% Anyone in Manfred's line of work, he remarks instead, 00:32:48.620 --> 00:32:50.750 align:middle line:90% makes serious enemies. 00:32:50.750 --> 00:32:53.330 align:middle line:90% Dugald puffs and nods. 00:32:53.330 --> 00:32:56.600 align:middle line:84% Serious and sophisticated enemies, in our house 00:32:56.600 --> 00:32:57.950 align:middle line:90% and in others. 00:32:57.950 --> 00:33:00.890 align:middle line:84% We believe Dugald Taylor to mean by others, 00:33:00.890 --> 00:33:04.790 align:middle line:84% not the KGB, but the various branches of the US Defense 00:33:04.790 --> 00:33:07.190 align:middle line:90% Intelligence Agency, DIA. 00:33:07.190 --> 00:33:09.920 align:middle line:84% Beside the scale of whose budget and operations 00:33:09.920 --> 00:33:13.160 align:middle line:90% the CIA's are small potatoes. 00:33:13.160 --> 00:33:15.710 align:middle line:84% As I'm sure you know, Manny did not always 00:33:15.710 --> 00:33:20.150 align:middle line:84% delegate his work to agents and cutouts as he should have done. 00:33:20.150 --> 00:33:22.010 align:middle line:90% I know, Doog. 00:33:22.010 --> 00:33:24.200 align:middle line:84% In certain very sensitive areas your brother 00:33:24.200 --> 00:33:28.430 align:middle line:84% was an incorrigible do it himself-er, against all policy. 00:33:28.430 --> 00:33:30.320 align:middle line:90% I know that. 00:33:30.320 --> 00:33:33.330 align:middle line:84% Manny preferred it that way, Fenn, he enjoyed it, 00:33:33.330 --> 00:33:34.863 align:middle line:90% I'm afraid. 00:33:34.863 --> 00:33:35.363 align:middle line:90% Mhm. 00:33:35.363 --> 00:33:37.290 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:33:37.290 --> 00:33:40.260 align:middle line:84% Luncheon is finished, their meeting not. 00:33:40.260 --> 00:33:43.320 align:middle line:84% After a few moments silence the two men exchange a glance. 00:33:43.320 --> 00:33:45.240 align:middle line:84% Dugald says I've signed the chit already. 00:33:45.240 --> 00:33:46.770 align:middle line:90% Shall we stroll. 00:33:46.770 --> 00:33:49.410 align:middle line:90% They do, back toward the Mall. 00:33:49.410 --> 00:33:52.470 align:middle line:90% Splendid lunch, Fenn says. 00:33:52.470 --> 00:33:53.580 align:middle line:90% Wasn't it? 00:33:53.580 --> 00:33:55.110 align:middle line:84% I needn't point out to you, Fenwick, 00:33:55.110 --> 00:33:57.180 align:middle line:84% that your public criticism of us together 00:33:57.180 --> 00:33:58.920 align:middle line:84% with your upcoming academic appointment, 00:33:58.920 --> 00:34:01.600 align:middle line:84% I forgot to congratulate you on that. 00:34:01.600 --> 00:34:02.100 align:middle line:90% Thanks. 00:34:02.100 --> 00:34:05.850 align:middle line:84% I may or may not take it after all or Susan hers. 00:34:05.850 --> 00:34:07.080 align:middle line:90% Really? 00:34:07.080 --> 00:34:11.159 align:middle line:84% We might just chuck everything and sail around the world. 00:34:11.159 --> 00:34:13.170 align:middle line:90% Oh, well, then. 00:34:13.170 --> 00:34:15.929 align:middle line:84% I was going to say, you've got a dandy cover now 00:34:15.929 --> 00:34:20.310 align:middle line:84% for doubling if you were of a mind to double. 00:34:20.310 --> 00:34:21.840 align:middle line:90% Dugald. 00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:25.050 align:middle line:84% For one second it occurs to Fenn to wonder whether his friend 00:34:25.050 --> 00:34:26.550 align:middle line:90% might be the deep mole. 00:34:26.550 --> 00:34:29.219 align:middle line:84% But Dugald goes on to declare in a particular way he 00:34:29.219 --> 00:34:31.380 align:middle line:84% has of speaking of delicate matters 00:34:31.380 --> 00:34:33.065 align:middle line:84% with scarcely a motion of his lip. 00:34:33.065 --> 00:34:34.440 align:middle line:84% That should Fenwick be approached 00:34:34.440 --> 00:34:36.659 align:middle line:84% by foreign agencies or the American agents 00:34:36.659 --> 00:34:39.360 align:middle line:84% of foreign agencies, not the KGB, one would guess. 00:34:39.360 --> 00:34:41.400 align:middle line:84% But some less sophisticated outfits 00:34:41.400 --> 00:34:45.389 align:middle line:84% such as DINA, Directorio Nacional de Inteligencia. 00:34:45.389 --> 00:34:48.449 align:middle line:84% The Chilean secret police responsible e.g. 00:34:48.449 --> 00:34:50.969 align:middle line:84% for the murders in September 1976-- 00:34:50.969 --> 00:34:52.800 align:middle line:84% a few blocks from where Fenn and Doog 00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:56.070 align:middle line:84% are strolling-- of the late President Allende's ambassador 00:34:56.070 --> 00:35:00.630 align:middle line:84% to the US, Orlando Letelier, and his young American associate 00:35:00.630 --> 00:35:01.650 align:middle line:90% Ms. Ronni Moffitt. 00:35:01.650 --> 00:35:03.900 align:middle line:84% See Assassination on Embassy Row, 00:35:03.900 --> 00:35:08.700 align:middle line:84% by John Dinges and Saul Landau, New York, Pantheon, 1980. 00:35:08.700 --> 00:35:10.860 align:middle line:84% And should he be inclined to take the pitch, 00:35:10.860 --> 00:35:14.160 align:middle line:84% he, Dugald, is authorized to say that their common former 00:35:14.160 --> 00:35:17.910 align:middle line:84% employer stands ready to forgive Fenwick his trespasses 00:35:17.910 --> 00:35:21.210 align:middle line:84% and assist his presumable search for further information 00:35:21.210 --> 00:35:25.050 align:middle line:90% about Manfred and Gus. 00:35:25.050 --> 00:35:30.120 align:middle line:84% Fenn halts on the sunny sidewalk of Dupont Circle. 00:35:30.120 --> 00:35:32.420 align:middle line:90% Gus. 00:35:32.420 --> 00:35:34.010 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:35:34.010 --> 00:35:35.745 align:middle line:90% Clearly there's more to come. 00:35:35.745 --> 00:35:38.150 align:middle line:84% Fenn considers the situation for five seconds 00:35:38.150 --> 00:35:41.450 align:middle line:84% and then promises to prepend their former employers office 00:35:41.450 --> 00:35:42.380 align:middle line:90% offer. 00:35:42.380 --> 00:35:45.260 align:middle line:90% They resume their walk. 00:35:45.260 --> 00:35:49.400 align:middle line:84% I should like to ask, Dugald continues affably after a time, 00:35:49.400 --> 00:35:51.980 align:middle line:84% whether you have to your knowledge already 00:35:51.980 --> 00:35:54.290 align:middle line:90% been so approached. 00:35:54.290 --> 00:35:55.890 align:middle line:90% Not to my knowledge, Doog. 00:35:55.890 --> 00:35:57.200 align:middle line:90% But as we know, et cetera. 00:35:57.200 --> 00:36:02.750 align:middle line:90% Of course, Mysterious Agency. 00:36:02.750 --> 00:36:05.060 align:middle line:84% Dugald Taylor was a student of literature 00:36:05.060 --> 00:36:08.540 align:middle line:84% before he went to law school and gravitated into the CIA 00:36:08.540 --> 00:36:12.410 align:middle line:84% by way of wartime duty with the Office of Strategic Services. 00:36:12.410 --> 00:36:16.760 align:middle line:84% His reference here, a standing irony among him, Fenwick, 00:36:16.760 --> 00:36:20.390 align:middle line:84% and their vanished colleague, is to the hero's invocation 00:36:20.390 --> 00:36:23.630 align:middle line:84% of the spirits, which opens Lord Byron's coral tragedy 00:36:23.630 --> 00:36:25.580 align:middle line:90% Manfred, 1816. 00:36:25.580 --> 00:36:30.380 align:middle line:84% The opening words of that play are O mysterious Agency. 00:36:30.380 --> 00:36:33.740 align:middle line:84% What Fenn really knows is that the conversation in progress 00:36:33.740 --> 00:36:36.530 align:middle line:84% may be the very approach Dugald speaks of 00:36:36.530 --> 00:36:38.930 align:middle line:84% and his friend the agent, or the agent's agent. 00:36:38.930 --> 00:36:40.580 align:middle line:90% They wait for a traffic light. 00:36:40.580 --> 00:36:44.360 align:middle line:84% Fenn says as they cross, you mentioned Gus. 00:36:44.360 --> 00:36:45.440 align:middle line:90% I did. 00:36:45.440 --> 00:36:47.780 align:middle line:84% It's come to our former employer's knowledge 00:36:47.780 --> 00:36:50.030 align:middle line:84% that among the anti-government prisoners being 00:36:50.030 --> 00:36:53.270 align:middle line:84% held on a certain island off the southern coast of Chile 00:36:53.270 --> 00:36:56.000 align:middle line:84% there are a number of non-nationals, not all of them 00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:00.140 align:middle line:84% from Bolivia, Argentina, or Cuba. 00:37:00.140 --> 00:37:02.000 align:middle line:90% Dugald. 00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:04.580 align:middle line:84% These non Chilean desaparecidos have not 00:37:04.580 --> 00:37:06.470 align:middle line:84% been terminally disappeared, not all 00:37:06.470 --> 00:37:08.660 align:middle line:84% of them for the usual reason, their families 00:37:08.660 --> 00:37:11.240 align:middle line:84% might be interested in assisting their repatriation 00:37:11.240 --> 00:37:12.957 align:middle line:90% by the customary means. 00:37:12.957 --> 00:37:15.290 align:middle line:84% You'll be interested to hear that your mother-in-law has 00:37:15.290 --> 00:37:17.660 align:middle line:84% already been approached by the agent of a government 00:37:17.660 --> 00:37:19.490 align:middle line:90% friendly to Chile. 00:37:19.490 --> 00:37:21.620 align:middle line:90% Carmen. 00:37:21.620 --> 00:37:22.850 align:middle line:90% Carmen. 00:37:22.850 --> 00:37:24.620 align:middle line:90% Jesus Christ, Doog. 00:37:24.620 --> 00:37:25.610 align:middle line:90% What government? 00:37:25.610 --> 00:37:27.470 align:middle line:90% Fenn points to the ground. 00:37:27.470 --> 00:37:29.390 align:middle line:90% Ours? 00:37:29.390 --> 00:37:31.400 align:middle line:90% Dugald shrugs his eyebrows. 00:37:31.400 --> 00:37:33.530 align:middle line:90% The question is improper. 00:37:33.530 --> 00:37:37.250 align:middle line:84% It has been suggested to young Gus Seckler-Turner's mother. 00:37:37.250 --> 00:37:40.460 align:middle line:84% He continues, then in exchange for her cooperation, 00:37:40.460 --> 00:37:42.740 align:middle line:84% this agent sponsors ascertain at least 00:37:42.740 --> 00:37:45.980 align:middle line:84% whether her son is among those non-Chilean prisoners. 00:37:45.980 --> 00:37:48.980 align:middle line:84% If then a mutually satisfactory further relation 00:37:48.980 --> 00:37:52.130 align:middle line:84% is established, and if indeed Gus is still alive, 00:37:52.130 --> 00:37:54.920 align:middle line:84% she need not abandon hope for his repatriation. 00:37:54.920 --> 00:37:57.140 align:middle line:90% You know how these things go. 00:37:57.140 --> 00:37:59.180 align:middle line:90% Fenwick feels ill. 00:37:59.180 --> 00:38:02.090 align:middle line:84% He takes Dugald's arm, almost seizes it, 00:38:02.090 --> 00:38:04.310 align:middle line:84% and discerns at once in his friend's eyes 00:38:04.310 --> 00:38:08.180 align:middle line:84% that it is not Doog who proposed this familiar extortion. 00:38:08.180 --> 00:38:11.480 align:middle line:84% Fenn does know very well how these things go. 00:38:11.480 --> 00:38:14.480 align:middle line:84% If Carmen B Seckler's first information turns out 00:38:14.480 --> 00:38:16.790 align:middle line:84% to be disinformation, her contact 00:38:16.790 --> 00:38:20.240 align:middle line:84% will regretfully report that her son is dead. 00:38:20.240 --> 00:38:22.280 align:middle line:84% He's relieved to hear now from Dugald 00:38:22.280 --> 00:38:24.380 align:middle line:84% that Carmen's immediate streetwise 00:38:24.380 --> 00:38:27.830 align:middle line:84% reply was exactly what friendly counterintelligence would 00:38:27.830 --> 00:38:29.000 align:middle line:90% have advised. 00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:31.280 align:middle line:84% Prove to me that my son is alive and then we'll 00:38:31.280 --> 00:38:33.720 align:middle line:90% discuss your proposal further. 00:38:33.720 --> 00:38:36.030 align:middle line:84% But what on Earth he wants to know. 00:38:36.030 --> 00:38:38.270 align:middle line:84% Can anyone hope to learn from Carmen B 00:38:38.270 --> 00:38:41.940 align:middle line:84% Seckler in the way of useful classified information, 00:38:41.940 --> 00:38:44.600 align:middle line:84% especially now that Manfred is out of the picture. 00:38:44.600 --> 00:38:45.890 align:middle line:90% Carmen and the neutron bomb. 00:38:45.890 --> 00:38:48.080 align:middle line:90% Carmen and the cruise missile. 00:38:48.080 --> 00:38:50.690 align:middle line:84% Now it's Doog who halts, twinkling, 00:38:50.690 --> 00:38:53.480 align:middle line:84% at the corner of Farragut Square. 00:38:53.480 --> 00:38:55.820 align:middle line:90% How about Carmen and the cruise. 00:38:55.820 --> 00:38:57.170 align:middle line:90% Your cruise. 00:38:57.170 --> 00:38:58.820 align:middle line:90% You. 00:38:58.820 --> 00:39:00.800 align:middle line:90% You're joking. 00:39:00.800 --> 00:39:01.973 align:middle line:90% No. 00:39:01.973 --> 00:39:03.140 align:middle line:90% There's nothing there, Doog. 00:39:03.140 --> 00:39:05.210 align:middle line:84% Listen Gus and Manfred disappeared. 00:39:05.210 --> 00:39:06.260 align:middle line:90% I had a heart attack. 00:39:06.260 --> 00:39:07.640 align:middle line:90% Susan had a paid leave. 00:39:07.640 --> 00:39:09.020 align:middle line:90% We took a long sail. 00:39:09.020 --> 00:39:10.605 align:middle line:84% We had a couple of decisions to make 00:39:10.605 --> 00:39:12.980 align:middle line:84% about what we want to do with the next part of our lives. 00:39:12.980 --> 00:39:14.900 align:middle line:84% There's that Swarthmore job for her. 00:39:14.900 --> 00:39:16.430 align:middle line:90% The Delaware job for me. 00:39:16.430 --> 00:39:17.690 align:middle line:90% There's a novel in the oven. 00:39:17.690 --> 00:39:20.090 align:middle line:84% There's Pokey, and Portugal, and the rest of the globe. 00:39:20.090 --> 00:39:21.050 align:middle line:90% There's other business. 00:39:21.050 --> 00:39:22.250 align:middle line:90% But there's no information. 00:39:22.250 --> 00:39:24.920 align:middle line:90% Some turkey is wasting his time. 00:39:24.920 --> 00:39:27.980 align:middle line:90% Let's stroll, Dugald suggests. 00:39:27.980 --> 00:39:31.370 align:middle line:84% They do, down toward Pennsylvania Avenue. 00:39:31.370 --> 00:39:33.110 align:middle line:90% I believe you, Fenn, of course. 00:39:33.110 --> 00:39:35.540 align:middle line:84% But suppose Carmen were to beg you, for instance, 00:39:35.540 --> 00:39:38.600 align:middle line:84% for her son's sake, to mount a serious campaign to persuade 00:39:38.600 --> 00:39:42.290 align:middle line:84% your son upon completion of his postdoctoral project 00:39:42.290 --> 00:39:46.730 align:middle line:84% to pursue his researches under agency auspices. 00:39:46.730 --> 00:39:48.890 align:middle line:90% Oh, Doog. 00:39:48.890 --> 00:39:51.200 align:middle line:90% Stroll, Fenn. 00:39:51.200 --> 00:39:54.530 align:middle line:84% They stroll, but Fenwick is dizzied. 00:39:54.530 --> 00:39:56.150 align:middle line:84% Or if that friendly government happens 00:39:56.150 --> 00:39:58.760 align:middle line:84% not to be this one, Dugald gestures toward the White 00:39:58.760 --> 00:40:00.810 align:middle line:84% House, you might persuade Orrin-- 00:40:00.810 --> 00:40:03.380 align:middle line:84% that's Fenwick son by a previous marriage-- 00:40:03.380 --> 00:40:05.990 align:middle line:84% to share his expertise in the gene splicing 00:40:05.990 --> 00:40:09.560 align:middle line:84% way with certain private researchers of that government. 00:40:09.560 --> 00:40:10.700 align:middle line:90% Fenn is incredulous. 00:40:10.700 --> 00:40:12.380 align:middle line:90% Chile? 00:40:12.380 --> 00:40:13.400 align:middle line:90% I didn't say Chile. 00:40:13.400 --> 00:40:15.410 align:middle line:84% I said a friend-- a government friendly to-- 00:40:15.410 --> 00:40:16.970 align:middle line:90% I won't do it, Doog. 00:40:16.970 --> 00:40:20.300 align:middle line:84% Gus will have to die if he isn't dead already. 00:40:20.300 --> 00:40:21.950 align:middle line:90% Dugald nods once. 00:40:21.950 --> 00:40:23.220 align:middle line:90% I didn't imagine you would. 00:40:23.220 --> 00:40:25.553 align:middle line:84% And I don't know by the way whether the poor young man's 00:40:25.553 --> 00:40:26.450 align:middle line:90% dead or alive. 00:40:26.450 --> 00:40:30.020 align:middle line:84% Better off dead, I imagine, than in Tejas Verdes or the like. 00:40:30.020 --> 00:40:32.770 align:middle line:84% That's an interrogation camp North of Santiago, 00:40:32.770 --> 00:40:34.960 align:middle line:84% particularly infamous as a torture center 00:40:34.960 --> 00:40:38.800 align:middle line:84% just after the 1973 coup and the establishment of DINA, 00:40:38.800 --> 00:40:42.280 align:middle line:84% whose first chief was also commandant of Tejas Verdes. 00:40:42.280 --> 00:40:43.270 align:middle line:90% See e.g. 00:40:43.270 --> 00:40:45.760 align:middle line:84% The Amnesty International Report On Torture, 00:40:45.760 --> 00:40:51.100 align:middle line:84% New York, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1975, page 208. 00:40:51.100 --> 00:40:53.800 align:middle line:84% But Carmen might decide to approach your son directly. 00:40:53.800 --> 00:40:56.400 align:middle line:84% The two boys were close I understand. 00:40:56.400 --> 00:40:57.500 align:middle line:90% Orrin won't do it. 00:40:57.500 --> 00:40:59.500 align:middle line:90% He'd fucking better not. 00:40:59.500 --> 00:41:02.080 align:middle line:84% Dugald Taylor who is without profanity 00:41:02.080 --> 00:41:05.440 align:middle line:84% or other casual vulgarity winces slightly 00:41:05.440 --> 00:41:07.390 align:middle line:84% and observes that many a scientist 00:41:07.390 --> 00:41:11.950 align:middle line:84% have been known to rise above his her principles. 00:41:11.950 --> 00:41:14.020 align:middle line:90% Not Orrin, Fenn declares grimly. 00:41:14.020 --> 00:41:16.660 align:middle line:84% To him pure science means morally pure, too. 00:41:16.660 --> 00:41:18.250 align:middle line:90% Doog, I'm flabbergasted. 00:41:18.250 --> 00:41:19.870 align:middle line:90% I'm sick. 00:41:19.870 --> 00:41:20.720 align:middle line:90% Sorry. 00:41:20.720 --> 00:41:21.220 align:middle line:90% No. 00:41:21.220 --> 00:41:21.460 align:middle line:90% No. 00:41:21.460 --> 00:41:22.240 align:middle line:90% I'm grateful to you. 00:41:22.240 --> 00:41:24.698 align:middle line:84% And it goes without saying I know you're clean in all this, 00:41:24.698 --> 00:41:26.230 align:middle line:90% but I'll say it. 00:41:26.230 --> 00:41:28.790 align:middle line:90% His friend's relief is evident. 00:41:28.790 --> 00:41:31.180 align:middle line:84% Thank you, Fenn, I am in fact clean. 00:41:31.180 --> 00:41:34.180 align:middle line:84% But the pitch to Carmen Seckler was serious, I think. 00:41:34.180 --> 00:41:36.070 align:middle line:84% No doubt she'll be perfectly candid about it 00:41:36.070 --> 00:41:38.200 align:middle line:90% with you when you see her. 00:41:38.200 --> 00:41:40.090 align:middle line:90% Dear God. 00:41:40.090 --> 00:41:41.680 align:middle line:90% Well. 00:41:41.680 --> 00:41:44.680 align:middle line:84% The pair have reached the E-Street tangent of the Ellipse 00:41:44.680 --> 00:41:47.620 align:middle line:90% and stand at the zero milestone. 00:41:47.620 --> 00:41:48.770 align:middle line:90% We say goodbye here. 00:41:48.770 --> 00:41:50.230 align:middle line:90% I'm off to Perth on Friday. 00:41:50.230 --> 00:41:51.910 align:middle line:90% Don't ask. 00:41:51.910 --> 00:41:52.880 align:middle line:90% I shan't, Doog. 00:41:52.880 --> 00:41:53.680 align:middle line:90% Friday, is it. 00:41:53.680 --> 00:41:55.780 align:middle line:90% Good journey. 00:41:55.780 --> 00:41:58.120 align:middle line:90% Dugald considers. 00:41:58.120 --> 00:41:59.897 align:middle line:90% We mentioned our episodes, Fenn. 00:41:59.897 --> 00:42:01.480 align:middle line:84% I must tell you that I've heard rumors 00:42:01.480 --> 00:42:04.180 align:middle line:84% which I wish I could refute, that our R & D people 00:42:04.180 --> 00:42:07.480 align:middle line:84% now have in their bag of tricks a fairly effective inducer 00:42:07.480 --> 00:42:10.030 align:middle line:90% of cardiac arrest. 00:42:10.030 --> 00:42:11.710 align:middle line:90% No. 00:42:11.710 --> 00:42:15.070 align:middle line:84% Very possibly it's not so but something just as nasty likely 00:42:15.070 --> 00:42:15.760 align:middle line:90% is. 00:42:15.760 --> 00:42:18.130 align:middle line:84% All the same you may want to confide this rumor 00:42:18.130 --> 00:42:18.970 align:middle line:90% to your doctors. 00:42:18.970 --> 00:42:19.630 align:middle line:90% I've done mine. 00:42:19.630 --> 00:42:21.580 align:middle line:84% Though there's not a thing he can do with the information 00:42:21.580 --> 00:42:22.210 align:middle line:90% medically. 00:42:22.210 --> 00:42:25.210 align:middle line:84% The trigger is alleged to be 100% clean though nowhere 00:42:25.210 --> 00:42:27.310 align:middle line:90% near infallible. 00:42:27.310 --> 00:42:30.010 align:middle line:90% Fenwick Turner's eyes water. 00:42:30.010 --> 00:42:32.860 align:middle line:90% God damn us, Doog. 00:42:32.860 --> 00:42:33.550 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:42:33.550 --> 00:42:35.290 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:42:35.290 --> 00:42:38.860 align:middle line:90% You, me, Manfred, all of us. 00:42:38.860 --> 00:42:41.800 align:middle line:84% Well, we're not yet a truly wicked government 00:42:41.800 --> 00:42:44.110 align:middle line:90% in my opinion. 00:42:44.110 --> 00:42:48.010 align:middle line:84% But we are sure as hell not poor in wickedness. 00:42:48.010 --> 00:42:50.470 align:middle line:90% Dugald sighs and nods. 00:42:50.470 --> 00:42:52.690 align:middle line:90% We are not poor in wickedness. 00:42:52.690 --> 00:42:53.830 align:middle line:90% Wiedersehen, Fenn. 00:42:53.830 --> 00:42:54.550 align:middle line:90% Good sailing. 00:42:54.550 --> 00:42:55.930 align:middle line:90% Kiss Susan. 00:42:55.930 --> 00:42:57.220 align:middle line:90% Fenwick extends his hand. 00:42:57.220 --> 00:43:00.310 align:middle line:84% And then on a shared if not quite simultaneous impulse 00:43:00.310 --> 00:43:03.760 align:middle line:84% the friends exchange a quick parting kiss themselves. 00:43:03.760 --> 00:43:06.190 align:middle line:84% A young Black man passing by with a radio 00:43:06.190 --> 00:43:10.900 align:middle line:84% the size of a salesman sample case says faggots. 00:43:10.900 --> 00:43:13.420 align:middle line:84% Fenn grins, says God bless America 00:43:13.420 --> 00:43:16.510 align:middle line:84% and squeezes his friends smooth hand. 00:43:16.510 --> 00:43:17.455 align:middle line:90% Dugald twinkles. 00:43:17.455 --> 00:43:22.150 align:middle line:90% 00:43:22.150 --> 00:43:25.900 align:middle line:84% This next excerpt which follows immediately but is shorter 00:43:25.900 --> 00:43:27.880 align:middle line:90% is called Fenn: Second Ordeal. 00:43:27.880 --> 00:43:29.740 align:middle line:84% The point of this chapter, I should say 00:43:29.740 --> 00:43:33.190 align:middle line:84% is that Fenn and Susan each have in the same short time 00:43:33.190 --> 00:43:35.590 align:middle line:90% period two ordeals. 00:43:35.590 --> 00:43:37.690 align:middle line:84% The first of which each duly reports 00:43:37.690 --> 00:43:42.100 align:middle line:84% to his her spouse, the other not. 00:43:42.100 --> 00:43:45.130 align:middle line:84% Fenn's second ordeal, the unreported one, 00:43:45.130 --> 00:43:48.220 align:middle line:84% occurs two hours later on the bus ride home somewhere 00:43:48.220 --> 00:43:50.380 align:middle line:84% between Charlotte Hall and Mechanicsville 00:43:50.380 --> 00:43:51.760 align:middle line:90% in Southern Maryland. 00:43:51.760 --> 00:43:54.970 align:middle line:84% He's telling his notebook about Dugald Taylor. 00:43:54.970 --> 00:43:57.340 align:middle line:84% Specifically along this stretch of highway, 00:43:57.340 --> 00:44:00.550 align:middle line:84% he's casting up fake names with a properly Scottish ring 00:44:00.550 --> 00:44:04.390 align:middle line:84% to them, in case Doog winds up on the payroll of our story, 00:44:04.390 --> 00:44:07.990 align:middle line:84% and reflecting as he casts upon their post lunch and talk 00:44:07.990 --> 00:44:09.880 align:middle line:90% and long standing friendship. 00:44:09.880 --> 00:44:12.430 align:middle line:84% When for the second time in half a century 00:44:12.430 --> 00:44:15.010 align:middle line:84% a very large hand inside his chest 00:44:15.010 --> 00:44:17.290 align:middle line:84% clutches and squeezes his heart as he 00:44:17.290 --> 00:44:19.780 align:middle line:84% had squeezed Dugald Taylor's hand. 00:44:19.780 --> 00:44:21.880 align:middle line:84% It's a minor seizure nothing like as 00:44:21.880 --> 00:44:25.690 align:middle line:84% painful or consequential as its predecessor of the year before. 00:44:25.690 --> 00:44:27.910 align:middle line:90% In 90 seconds it subsides. 00:44:27.910 --> 00:44:29.890 align:middle line:90% In five minutes, it's gone. 00:44:29.890 --> 00:44:31.750 align:middle line:90% He loosens his necktie. 00:44:31.750 --> 00:44:35.230 align:middle line:84% His pulse rate continues high, probably from consternation. 00:44:35.230 --> 00:44:37.990 align:middle line:90% He's in a sopping sweat. 00:44:37.990 --> 00:44:40.120 align:middle line:84% The obvious question preoccupies him 00:44:40.120 --> 00:44:42.310 align:middle line:84% through the rest of the bus ride and will 00:44:42.310 --> 00:44:46.570 align:middle line:84% again after the distraction of comparing official ordeals 00:44:46.570 --> 00:44:47.710 align:middle line:90% with Susan. 00:44:47.710 --> 00:44:50.170 align:middle line:84% Likewise some sub or ancillary questions, 00:44:50.170 --> 00:44:52.540 align:middle line:84% perhaps less obvious, such as whether Dugald 00:44:52.540 --> 00:44:55.250 align:middle line:84% could have been the unwitting transmitter of R 00:44:55.250 --> 00:44:57.790 align:middle line:84% and D's rumored infernal new toxin, 00:44:57.790 --> 00:45:01.150 align:middle line:84% and whether its dosage has been refined to the Warning level. 00:45:01.150 --> 00:45:03.970 align:middle line:84% Even whether the rules of dramaturgy permit a scene 00:45:03.970 --> 00:45:07.300 align:middle line:84% that begins with a dialogue on improbable coincidence 00:45:07.300 --> 00:45:09.790 align:middle line:84% to end with an improbable coincidence. 00:45:09.790 --> 00:45:12.700 align:middle line:84% Can a pistol hung on the wall in act one, 00:45:12.700 --> 00:45:17.560 align:middle line:84% he asks his notebook, be fired in act one. 00:45:17.560 --> 00:45:19.630 align:middle line:84% On balance, however, though shaken, 00:45:19.630 --> 00:45:21.910 align:middle line:84% he receives this postscript from his heart 00:45:21.910 --> 00:45:25.480 align:middle line:84% a good deal more calmly than he received the original message. 00:45:25.480 --> 00:45:28.420 align:middle line:84% Evidence he's pleased to infer that the peace he's 00:45:28.420 --> 00:45:31.960 align:middle line:84% made with the prospect of his death is not merely notional. 00:45:31.960 --> 00:45:35.050 align:middle line:84% His concerns for Susan, and for Carmen B Seckler, 00:45:35.050 --> 00:45:37.120 align:middle line:84% who suffered enough bereavement already, 00:45:37.120 --> 00:45:41.080 align:middle line:84% and whose attempted coercing must be dealt with. 00:45:41.080 --> 00:45:42.980 align:middle line:90% My my. 00:45:42.980 --> 00:45:46.720 align:middle line:84% By the time he dis-buses at Solomon's, Fenn's sweat is dry. 00:45:46.720 --> 00:45:49.300 align:middle line:84% His pulse is normal, 60 to the tick. 00:45:49.300 --> 00:45:52.900 align:middle line:84% It is good to be back among the banging halyards and kvetching 00:45:52.900 --> 00:45:53.710 align:middle line:90% gulls. 00:45:53.710 --> 00:45:56.320 align:middle line:84% He removes his necktie, opens his shirt-- 00:45:56.320 --> 00:46:13.380 align:middle line:90% 00:46:13.380 --> 00:46:15.350 align:middle line:90% it's normal, 60 to the tick. 00:46:15.350 --> 00:46:18.890 align:middle line:84% It is good to be back among the banging halyards and kvetching 00:46:18.890 --> 00:46:19.700 align:middle line:90% gulls. 00:46:19.700 --> 00:46:22.370 align:middle line:84% He removes his necktie, opens his shirt, 00:46:22.370 --> 00:46:24.920 align:middle line:84% lets his eyeglasses hang from their lanyard, 00:46:24.920 --> 00:46:28.460 align:middle line:84% ruefully prepares to conceal from his wife as pointless, 00:46:28.460 --> 00:46:32.120 align:middle line:84% at least for the present, the tidings of this second episode, 00:46:32.120 --> 00:46:33.950 align:middle line:90% and its possible cause. 00:46:33.950 --> 00:46:35.930 align:middle line:84% He will tell her, indeed he'll consult her 00:46:35.930 --> 00:46:38.540 align:middle line:84% about the reported extortion of her mother 00:46:38.540 --> 00:46:41.000 align:middle line:84% and what might be done to end or make use of it 00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:43.820 align:middle line:84% short of his resuming work for the company. 00:46:43.820 --> 00:46:47.360 align:middle line:84% Love for Susan floods Fenwick's soul. 00:46:47.360 --> 00:46:50.840 align:middle line:84% So full of secrets were his latter agency years. 00:46:50.840 --> 00:46:54.270 align:middle line:84% He hates the least lapse of candor in his marriage. 00:46:54.270 --> 00:46:57.080 align:middle line:84% He craves powerfully to talk with her. 00:46:57.080 --> 00:47:00.020 align:middle line:84% Much as he cares for poor wrecked Miriam, 00:47:00.020 --> 00:47:03.050 align:middle line:84% he hopes that she and her brood are gone. 00:47:03.050 --> 00:47:07.640 align:middle line:84% Miriam Leah Poe Seckler is Susan's unlucky [? sister ?].. 00:47:07.640 --> 00:47:12.200 align:middle line:84% A former flower child who was gang raped by a motorcycle gang 00:47:12.200 --> 00:47:13.700 align:middle line:90% in 1968. 00:47:13.700 --> 00:47:16.280 align:middle line:84% Subsequently a political radical like Gus, 00:47:16.280 --> 00:47:19.100 align:middle line:84% she was briefly tortured by SAVAK in Tehran 00:47:19.100 --> 00:47:21.110 align:middle line:84% under the Shah-- one of the few Americans 00:47:21.110 --> 00:47:24.260 align:middle line:84% to have that misfortune befall him/her. 00:47:24.260 --> 00:47:26.720 align:middle line:84% The experience has left her scattered and the mother 00:47:26.720 --> 00:47:28.550 align:middle line:90% of two illegitimate children. 00:47:28.550 --> 00:47:32.990 align:middle line:84% The menage has been visiting Susan aboard ship 00:47:32.990 --> 00:47:35.750 align:middle line:84% while Fenwick has been in Washington. 00:47:35.750 --> 00:47:38.570 align:middle line:84% Apparently they are gone or elsewhere in the village 00:47:38.570 --> 00:47:39.950 align:middle line:90% and Susan with them. 00:47:39.950 --> 00:47:43.430 align:middle line:84% As he reaches the pier wishing he'd found some sort of gift, 00:47:43.430 --> 00:47:47.180 align:middle line:84% Fenn is disappointed to see no sign of his friend on the boat. 00:47:47.180 --> 00:47:49.220 align:middle line:84% His skipperly eye observes at once 00:47:49.220 --> 00:47:52.730 align:middle line:84% that Pokey has for some reason been freshly hosed down 00:47:52.730 --> 00:47:56.090 align:middle line:84% and scrubbed though we did that chore only yesterday. 00:47:56.090 --> 00:47:58.400 align:middle line:84% Moreover the water valves been left on, 00:47:58.400 --> 00:48:00.110 align:middle line:84% the hose is dripping at the nozzle, 00:48:00.110 --> 00:48:02.870 align:middle line:84% and our deck brush and bucket are on the finger pier 00:48:02.870 --> 00:48:05.150 align:middle line:84% where they might easily be knocked overboard instead 00:48:05.150 --> 00:48:07.010 align:middle line:84% of in the lazarette where they belong. 00:48:07.010 --> 00:48:08.090 align:middle line:90% No great matter. 00:48:08.090 --> 00:48:10.670 align:middle line:84% But in the cockpits a more [INAUDIBLE].. 00:48:10.670 --> 00:48:12.800 align:middle line:84% A green bottle of Moselle four-fifths 00:48:12.800 --> 00:48:15.320 align:middle line:90% empty on the cockpit sole. 00:48:15.320 --> 00:48:18.710 align:middle line:84% And one nine-ounce paper cup also not quite empty 00:48:18.710 --> 00:48:20.840 align:middle line:90% in a gimbal drink-holder. 00:48:20.840 --> 00:48:23.000 align:middle line:90% Something has gone wrong. 00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:26.030 align:middle line:84% Fenn steps aboard calling Susan without reply. 00:48:26.030 --> 00:48:30.230 align:middle line:84% Now he sees her prone on the starboard settee in work shorts 00:48:30.230 --> 00:48:33.440 align:middle line:84% and t-shirt, her face swollen from crying. 00:48:33.440 --> 00:48:36.500 align:middle line:84% As he hurries to her, his heart clutched by concern. 00:48:36.500 --> 00:48:38.300 align:middle line:90% She turns her face away. 00:48:38.300 --> 00:48:39.200 align:middle line:90% He touches her. 00:48:39.200 --> 00:48:41.600 align:middle line:84% She shrinks from him and draws him to her. 00:48:41.600 --> 00:48:42.800 align:middle line:90% Holds him desperately. 00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:43.700 align:middle line:90% Weeps again. 00:48:43.700 --> 00:48:48.200 align:middle line:84% In time unfolds the tale of our next short excerpt, 00:48:48.200 --> 00:48:49.250 align:middle line:90% Susan's ordeal. 00:48:49.250 --> 00:48:52.950 align:middle line:90% 00:48:52.950 --> 00:48:55.410 align:middle line:84% Miriam and the boys arrive afternoon. 00:48:55.410 --> 00:48:58.530 align:middle line:84% She chain-smoking, crazy haired, leather sandals. 00:48:58.530 --> 00:49:01.860 align:middle line:84% 11-year-old Sy, Miriam's child by the gang 00:49:01.860 --> 00:49:05.010 align:middle line:84% rapists, wearing hard soled shoes, black socks, 00:49:05.010 --> 00:49:08.520 align:middle line:84% black Bermudas on his fat legs and unbelievably 00:49:08.520 --> 00:49:10.200 align:middle line:90% smoking a cigarette too. 00:49:10.200 --> 00:49:12.960 align:middle line:84% And 2-year-old Edgar Allan Ho-- her child 00:49:12.960 --> 00:49:15.615 align:middle line:84% by her current lover, a Vietnamese refugee poet. 00:49:15.615 --> 00:49:18.090 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:49:18.090 --> 00:49:22.020 align:middle line:84% Also wearing leather soles and wielding a vintage 1930 metal 00:49:22.020 --> 00:49:24.060 align:middle line:90% toy truck with missing wheels. 00:49:24.060 --> 00:49:27.480 align:middle line:84% A sharp cornered gift from some Fells Point antique dealer 00:49:27.480 --> 00:49:29.640 align:middle line:90% and patron of Carmen's place. 00:49:29.640 --> 00:49:32.640 align:middle line:84% Horrified, Susan makes haste to intercept them. 00:49:32.640 --> 00:49:35.340 align:middle line:84% Can Mimi really have forgotten that leather soles 00:49:35.340 --> 00:49:37.320 align:middle line:90% won't do on wooden decks? 00:49:37.320 --> 00:49:40.920 align:middle line:84% Now, Sy spots his aunt Susie and galumphs toward her, 00:49:40.920 --> 00:49:44.040 align:middle line:84% his belly lopping over the belt of his old man short. 00:49:44.040 --> 00:49:45.720 align:middle line:90% Edgar trots after. 00:49:45.720 --> 00:49:49.050 align:middle line:84% Thin faced Miriam halts to light a fresh cigarette with the butt 00:49:49.050 --> 00:49:50.400 align:middle line:90% of its predecessor. 00:49:50.400 --> 00:49:52.320 align:middle line:90% Don't run, Susan yells. 00:49:52.320 --> 00:49:53.910 align:middle line:84% As if she'd cried "Hit the deck," 00:49:53.910 --> 00:49:56.310 align:middle line:90% both boys at once go sprawling. 00:49:56.310 --> 00:49:59.010 align:middle line:84% EA Ho has merely lost his balance. 00:49:59.010 --> 00:50:01.530 align:middle line:84% Fortunately, he loses his toy as well 00:50:01.530 --> 00:50:05.560 align:middle line:84% into the harbor before it can damage either Pokey or himself. 00:50:05.560 --> 00:50:08.850 align:middle line:84% He comes up bawling but unhurt except for small splinters 00:50:08.850 --> 00:50:10.740 align:middle line:90% in the heels of both hands. 00:50:10.740 --> 00:50:13.740 align:middle line:84% Heavy Sy however, stubs his black leather toe 00:50:13.740 --> 00:50:15.660 align:middle line:90% on a dock plank and goes down. 00:50:15.660 --> 00:50:18.030 align:middle line:84% Both knees and one elbow skinned. 00:50:18.030 --> 00:50:20.460 align:middle line:84% A wicked brush burn on one forearm. 00:50:20.460 --> 00:50:24.630 align:middle line:84% The bag of fresh tomatoes which Carmen B Seckler has sent down 00:50:24.630 --> 00:50:26.910 align:middle line:84% with the inevitable welcome store of rye bread, 00:50:26.910 --> 00:50:30.120 align:middle line:84% corned beef, lox, and bagels squashed under him 00:50:30.120 --> 00:50:32.190 align:middle line:84% where he clutched it to keep it safe. 00:50:32.190 --> 00:50:35.640 align:middle line:84% Splinters, blood, and tomato pulp from shin to chin. 00:50:35.640 --> 00:50:37.890 align:middle line:84% He rolls onto his back as well as 00:50:37.890 --> 00:50:42.090 align:middle line:84% onto both his lighted cigarette and more tomatoes, 00:50:42.090 --> 00:50:46.020 align:middle line:90% and lets go a heroic caterwaul. 00:50:46.020 --> 00:50:49.580 align:middle line:84% Susan breaks the dock rule herself and runs to help. 00:50:49.580 --> 00:50:53.550 align:middle line:84% EA Ho turning to his mother for succor, trips and sprawls 00:50:53.550 --> 00:50:54.690 align:middle line:90% again. 00:50:54.690 --> 00:50:57.630 align:middle line:84% Miriam surveys the scene impassively, 00:50:57.630 --> 00:51:00.690 align:middle line:84% draws on her fresh cigarette, and flicks the old one 00:51:00.690 --> 00:51:02.460 align:middle line:84% away without looking to see whether it 00:51:02.460 --> 00:51:05.280 align:middle line:84% falls into the water or somebody's cockpit. 00:51:05.280 --> 00:51:09.540 align:middle line:84% It's not the moment to invoke the no hard shoes rule. 00:51:09.540 --> 00:51:11.700 align:middle line:84% Hindsight suggests that Susan might 00:51:11.700 --> 00:51:14.490 align:middle line:84% have made use of the dock hose as both first aid 00:51:14.490 --> 00:51:15.930 align:middle line:90% and preventive medicine. 00:51:15.930 --> 00:51:18.900 align:middle line:84% Removing the boy's shoes and Sy's pulpy-- 00:51:18.900 --> 00:51:21.780 align:middle line:84% and washing their cuts before anyone came aboard. 00:51:21.780 --> 00:51:24.660 align:middle line:84% At the time she's too concerned for their hurts 00:51:24.660 --> 00:51:27.910 align:middle line:84% and distracted by their howling to think of it. 00:51:27.910 --> 00:51:30.900 align:middle line:84% And so Pokey is boarded by mother and children. 00:51:30.900 --> 00:51:33.780 align:middle line:84% And on Sue's subsequent conservative estimate, 00:51:33.780 --> 00:51:37.920 align:middle line:84% which Fenn cannot gain say, the ship sustains more damage 00:51:37.920 --> 00:51:41.850 align:middle line:84% in the next 10 minutes than in our entire ocean passage from 00:51:41.850 --> 00:51:45.210 align:middle line:84% the Virgin Islands, including that storm off the Virginia 00:51:45.210 --> 00:51:46.350 align:middle line:90% capes. 00:51:46.350 --> 00:51:48.840 align:middle line:84% And yet more damage before the short visit's 00:51:48.840 --> 00:51:51.930 align:middle line:84% done than in those first 10 minutes. 00:51:51.930 --> 00:51:54.060 align:middle line:84% The bloodstains in the settee fabric 00:51:54.060 --> 00:51:56.040 align:middle line:84% are probably permanent as are the cigarette 00:51:56.040 --> 00:51:59.820 align:middle line:84% burns in the holly cabin sole, on the mahogany chart table 00:51:59.820 --> 00:52:03.180 align:middle line:84% fiddle, on the teak wash stand counter in the head. 00:52:03.180 --> 00:52:06.150 align:middle line:84% The blood and tomato stains and the teak deck planking, 00:52:06.150 --> 00:52:08.790 align:middle line:84% like the shoe leather scratches on the cabin and cockpit, 00:52:08.790 --> 00:52:11.070 align:middle line:84% soles, and companion way ladder will 00:52:11.070 --> 00:52:14.520 align:middle line:84% yield to laborious refinishing next season. 00:52:14.520 --> 00:52:16.620 align:middle line:84% But the custom made cockpit cushion 00:52:16.620 --> 00:52:18.090 align:middle line:90% will have to be replaced. 00:52:18.090 --> 00:52:20.610 align:middle line:84% Little Edgar discovers the galley knife rack 00:52:20.610 --> 00:52:24.750 align:middle line:84% while he holds forth on Susan's moral irresponsibility 00:52:24.750 --> 00:52:27.270 align:middle line:84% in choosing a tenured associate professorship 00:52:27.270 --> 00:52:29.550 align:middle line:84% in an elitist college, over working 00:52:29.550 --> 00:52:32.910 align:middle line:84% with deprived inner city children. 00:52:32.910 --> 00:52:36.720 align:middle line:84% Susan in the head compartment is washing and bandaging Sy. 00:52:36.720 --> 00:52:39.480 align:middle line:84% By the time she sees what's up and shrieks at Miriam 00:52:39.480 --> 00:52:42.180 align:middle line:84% to disarm the child before he cuts himself. 00:52:42.180 --> 00:52:45.720 align:middle line:84% Edgar has blithely slashed the vinyl cushion cover. 00:52:45.720 --> 00:52:48.540 align:middle line:84% Even then it is Susan who must dash through the cabin 00:52:48.540 --> 00:52:51.030 align:middle line:84% and up the companion way to snatch the knife. 00:52:51.030 --> 00:52:55.020 align:middle line:84% Miriam, unmoving, declares that the little fuckers 00:52:55.020 --> 00:52:57.745 align:middle line:84% have to learn from experience that knives are dangerous. 00:52:57.745 --> 00:53:00.420 align:middle line:90% 00:53:00.420 --> 00:53:03.870 align:middle line:84% And Fenwick will have to remove, dismantle, reassemble, 00:53:03.870 --> 00:53:08.100 align:middle line:84% and reinstall the marine toilet, itself half a day's messy work. 00:53:08.100 --> 00:53:10.320 align:middle line:84% What a pain in the ass, Miriam remarks, 00:53:10.320 --> 00:53:13.320 align:middle line:84% when Susan, almost in tears, now reminds her 00:53:13.320 --> 00:53:14.610 align:middle line:90% how to pump the thing. 00:53:14.610 --> 00:53:16.920 align:middle line:84% But Mim neglects to mention that she too 00:53:16.920 --> 00:53:19.110 align:middle line:84% is menstruating until she has plugged 00:53:19.110 --> 00:53:22.020 align:middle line:84% the plumbing with a discarded tampon and a filter tip 00:53:22.020 --> 00:53:23.520 align:middle line:90% cigarette. 00:53:23.520 --> 00:53:26.100 align:middle line:84% Susan [INAUDIBLE] has been literally too busy coping even 00:53:26.100 --> 00:53:27.690 align:middle line:90% to kiss her sister hello. 00:53:27.690 --> 00:53:30.360 align:middle line:84% By the time she gets the boys, de-splintered, washed, 00:53:30.360 --> 00:53:33.000 align:middle line:84% disinfected, bandaged, untomatoed, disarmed, 00:53:33.000 --> 00:53:36.000 align:middle line:90% and unshod, she's near hysteria. 00:53:36.000 --> 00:53:39.060 align:middle line:84% The blocked toilet Miriam has shat in it too 00:53:39.060 --> 00:53:41.400 align:middle line:84% and the cigarette burns, of which Sue now 00:53:41.400 --> 00:53:43.470 align:middle line:84% discovers the first on the wash basin 00:53:43.470 --> 00:53:46.350 align:middle line:84% counter while trying in vain to clear the blockage 00:53:46.350 --> 00:53:47.640 align:middle line:90% do the trick. 00:53:47.640 --> 00:53:51.170 align:middle line:84% Nobody wants her crab and avocado salad anyhow. 00:53:51.170 --> 00:53:55.600 align:middle line:84% Mim and the boys tanked up at a Burger King on the drive down. 00:53:55.600 --> 00:53:58.360 align:middle line:84% The visit Susan has for months looked forward to 00:53:58.360 --> 00:54:00.500 align:middle line:90% is over in 30 miserable minutes. 00:54:00.500 --> 00:54:02.910 align:middle line:84% She screams at her sister to get off the boat. 00:54:02.910 --> 00:54:03.410 align:middle line:90% Off. 00:54:03.410 --> 00:54:04.150 align:middle line:90% Off. 00:54:04.150 --> 00:54:07.180 align:middle line:84% Cute Edgar Allan is frightened into bawling again. 00:54:07.180 --> 00:54:09.550 align:middle line:90% He has also shat his diaper. 00:54:09.550 --> 00:54:12.250 align:middle line:84% Wide eyed Sy picks his Buddhic nose 00:54:12.250 --> 00:54:14.560 align:middle line:84% and wipes his finger on the settee. 00:54:14.560 --> 00:54:16.540 align:middle line:90% Susan goes clear out of control. 00:54:16.540 --> 00:54:17.140 align:middle line:90% Get off. 00:54:17.140 --> 00:54:17.770 align:middle line:90% Go home. 00:54:17.770 --> 00:54:19.750 align:middle line:90% Go home. 00:54:19.750 --> 00:54:22.750 align:middle line:84% Jesus, Shushi, Miriam says, laying her cigarette 00:54:22.750 --> 00:54:24.220 align:middle line:90% on the chart table fiddle. 00:54:24.220 --> 00:54:25.810 align:middle line:90% You're tighter assed than ever. 00:54:25.810 --> 00:54:27.782 align:middle line:84% She picks up-- come on Sy, is Fenn 00:54:27.782 --> 00:54:28.990 align:middle line:90% cheating on you or something? 00:54:28.990 --> 00:54:30.490 align:middle line:90% He better not. 00:54:30.490 --> 00:54:31.390 align:middle line:90% Go away. 00:54:31.390 --> 00:54:32.470 align:middle line:90% Go away. 00:54:32.470 --> 00:54:35.140 align:middle line:84% Weeping [? hoot ?] Susan herds them up the ladder, 00:54:35.140 --> 00:54:37.180 align:middle line:84% out of the cockpit, onto the dock. 00:54:37.180 --> 00:54:40.780 align:middle line:84% Unprecedented behavior for her who normally shrugs off 00:54:40.780 --> 00:54:43.870 align:middle line:84% her sister's familiar criticisms the first 10 minutes 00:54:43.870 --> 00:54:46.480 align:middle line:84% of any reunion and minimizes property 00:54:46.480 --> 00:54:48.970 align:middle line:84% damage by adroit preventive measures, 00:54:48.970 --> 00:54:51.730 align:middle line:84% so that their abiding love and concern for each other 00:54:51.730 --> 00:54:53.260 align:middle line:90% can come through. 00:54:53.260 --> 00:54:55.660 align:middle line:84% Now, on the dock at last she understands 00:54:55.660 --> 00:54:59.080 align:middle line:84% that she must hence forward see Miriam only on Miriam's, 00:54:59.080 --> 00:55:00.310 align:middle line:90% or neutral ground. 00:55:00.310 --> 00:55:04.150 align:middle line:84% And even half hysterical she's saddened by this recognition. 00:55:04.150 --> 00:55:06.550 align:middle line:84% She hugs and kisses her sister, whose 00:55:06.550 --> 00:55:10.060 align:middle line:84% great dark eyes, her sole unravaged feature, 00:55:10.060 --> 00:55:14.500 align:middle line:84% twins to Susan's, at once fill up like Sue's with tears. 00:55:14.500 --> 00:55:17.530 align:middle line:84% And springs back onto the boat, down into the cabin, 00:55:17.530 --> 00:55:19.390 align:middle line:90% out of sight. 00:55:19.390 --> 00:55:21.010 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry Susele. 00:55:21.010 --> 00:55:22.930 align:middle line:90% Miriam calls after her. 00:55:22.930 --> 00:55:25.900 align:middle line:84% Sue is weeping on the stained settee. 00:55:25.900 --> 00:55:28.930 align:middle line:84% Sy hoarsely complains, ain't we going sailing, ma? 00:55:28.930 --> 00:55:30.820 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] replies, no asshole. 00:55:30.820 --> 00:55:32.260 align:middle line:90% We busted the fucking boat. 00:55:32.260 --> 00:55:35.543 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:55:35.543 --> 00:55:37.420 align:middle line:90% 00:55:37.420 --> 00:55:39.550 align:middle line:90% Sy wails, you said. 00:55:39.550 --> 00:55:41.830 align:middle line:84% Said schmed, says Miriam, were going home. 00:55:41.830 --> 00:55:45.340 align:middle line:84% EA Ho joins his half brother's bawling. 00:55:45.340 --> 00:55:48.220 align:middle line:84% The family exits as noisily as it arrived. 00:55:48.220 --> 00:55:51.160 align:middle line:84% Then I scrubbed everything inside and out, Susan sobs. 00:55:51.160 --> 00:55:53.660 align:middle line:84% And I worked, and worked, on the head and couldn't clear it. 00:55:53.660 --> 00:55:56.410 align:middle line:84% And everywhere I looked I saw more gouges, and scratches, 00:55:56.410 --> 00:55:58.270 align:middle line:90% and cigarette burns. 00:55:58.270 --> 00:56:02.470 align:middle line:84% It's all right, Fenwick tells her, it's all right. 00:56:02.470 --> 00:56:04.930 align:middle line:84% So I decided to get drunk but I just gave myself 00:56:04.930 --> 00:56:05.872 align:middle line:90% a cracking headache. 00:56:05.872 --> 00:56:07.330 align:middle line:84% Mims and I didn't even get to talk. 00:56:07.330 --> 00:56:09.953 align:middle line:84% I even forgot to put Ma's lox and corned beef on ice. 00:56:09.953 --> 00:56:10.870 align:middle line:90% I had to throw it out. 00:56:10.870 --> 00:56:11.480 align:middle line:90% How's Doog? 00:56:11.480 --> 00:56:11.980 align:middle line:90% Hold me. 00:56:11.980 --> 00:56:12.760 align:middle line:90% Poor Mimsi. 00:56:12.760 --> 00:56:14.560 align:middle line:90% God. 00:56:14.560 --> 00:56:16.060 align:middle line:90% No real news, Fenn says. 00:56:16.060 --> 00:56:18.070 align:middle line:84% It'll keep till tomorrow when we're sailing. 00:56:18.070 --> 00:56:19.420 align:middle line:90% I'm hungry. 00:56:19.420 --> 00:56:20.273 align:middle line:90% I'm sick. 00:56:20.273 --> 00:56:21.190 align:middle line:90% What shall I make you? 00:56:21.190 --> 00:56:24.455 align:middle line:84% She forgot to give me the mail too and I forgot to ask. 00:56:24.455 --> 00:56:26.080 align:middle line:84% Bring us something from the restaurant. 00:56:26.080 --> 00:56:26.980 align:middle line:90% The mail will keep. 00:56:26.980 --> 00:56:28.300 align:middle line:90% What can you eat? 00:56:28.300 --> 00:56:31.600 align:middle line:84% Susan sits up and pushes her hair back with both hands. 00:56:31.600 --> 00:56:33.400 align:middle line:84% The number three sandwich on wheat toast 00:56:33.400 --> 00:56:35.680 align:middle line:84% with mayonnaise, and chips, and a medium Coke. 00:56:35.680 --> 00:56:37.810 align:middle line:84% I better wash up and go with you, I need to pee. 00:56:37.810 --> 00:56:39.790 align:middle line:90% Poor, poor, Mimsi. 00:56:39.790 --> 00:56:42.610 align:middle line:84% The little marina restaurant is empty. 00:56:42.610 --> 00:56:45.700 align:middle line:84% Navy planes blast in and out of the air station. 00:56:45.700 --> 00:56:47.680 align:middle line:84% Returning from the women's room, Susan 00:56:47.680 --> 00:56:49.900 align:middle line:90% says her face looks awful. 00:56:49.900 --> 00:56:52.150 align:middle line:84% No it doesn't, how is your period? 00:56:52.150 --> 00:56:53.320 align:middle line:90% Her eyes refill. 00:56:53.320 --> 00:56:54.970 align:middle line:90% Mim's wrong, Fenn. 00:56:54.970 --> 00:56:58.240 align:middle line:84% Kids aren't unimportant just because they're well off. 00:56:58.240 --> 00:56:59.800 align:middle line:90% Your sister's nuts. 00:56:59.800 --> 00:57:00.580 align:middle line:90% Never mind that. 00:57:00.580 --> 00:57:02.680 align:middle line:84% Somebody has to teach the Superkids too. 00:57:02.680 --> 00:57:04.690 align:middle line:84% They're important and I'm good at it. 00:57:04.690 --> 00:57:05.560 align:middle line:90% You're the best. 00:57:05.560 --> 00:57:07.060 align:middle line:90% I'm not the best, but I'm good. 00:57:07.060 --> 00:57:08.890 align:middle line:84% And what I do for bright kids is important. 00:57:08.890 --> 00:57:09.640 align:middle line:90% They're important. 00:57:09.640 --> 00:57:12.020 align:middle line:90% Gifted kids are precious. 00:57:12.020 --> 00:57:14.050 align:middle line:84% We have explored these waters together 00:57:14.050 --> 00:57:16.600 align:middle line:84% many times before but Fenwick understands 00:57:16.600 --> 00:57:17.980 align:middle line:84% that they must be cruised through 00:57:17.980 --> 00:57:20.020 align:middle line:90% once again for Susan's solace. 00:57:20.020 --> 00:57:22.120 align:middle line:84% It is not that the inner city deprived 00:57:22.120 --> 00:57:25.840 align:middle line:84% don't matter, we re-agree, or the rural deprived, or the old, 00:57:25.840 --> 00:57:29.087 align:middle line:84% or refugees, or recidivist criminals, or who have you. 00:57:29.087 --> 00:57:31.780 align:middle line:84% There's to be found among them the occasional diamond 00:57:31.780 --> 00:57:35.170 align:middle line:84% in the rough and no lack of lesser minerals, and honest-- 00:57:35.170 --> 00:57:37.690 align:middle line:84% but the excellent and privileged matter also. 00:57:37.690 --> 00:57:41.380 align:middle line:84% Diamonds in the smooth, Sue calls them. 00:57:41.380 --> 00:57:44.860 align:middle line:84% And if she's less anti populist than Leonardo da Vinci who 00:57:44.860 --> 00:57:48.490 align:middle line:84% dismissed the mass of humankind as mere fillers up of privies 00:57:48.490 --> 00:57:51.850 align:middle line:84% she's unabashedly more so than her sister who will not 00:57:51.850 --> 00:57:55.150 align:middle line:84% acknowledge that a young Mozart is in any consequential way 00:57:55.150 --> 00:57:57.970 align:middle line:84% more valuable than a semi retarded and pregnant 00:57:57.970 --> 00:58:02.320 align:middle line:84% 14-year-old escapee from an institution for wayward girls. 00:58:02.320 --> 00:58:05.770 align:middle line:84% Between ourselves all this is preaching to the converted. 00:58:05.770 --> 00:58:08.470 align:middle line:84% But though the sisters had no time to talk this afternoon, 00:58:08.470 --> 00:58:10.930 align:middle line:84% we know also that there's another aspect 00:58:10.930 --> 00:58:14.320 align:middle line:84% to Miriam's loving criticism of us, less easily countered, 00:58:14.320 --> 00:58:16.840 align:middle line:84% however much the critics own current life might 00:58:16.840 --> 00:58:18.730 align:middle line:90% fail to exemplify. 00:58:18.730 --> 00:58:21.310 align:middle line:84% For more than half a year we have not been. 00:58:21.310 --> 00:58:23.470 align:middle line:84% And just possibly for a considerable while 00:58:23.470 --> 00:58:26.440 align:middle line:84% to come yet we shall not be teaching the gifted 00:58:26.440 --> 00:58:29.050 align:middle line:84% or exposing the misdeeds of the CIA, 00:58:29.050 --> 00:58:31.570 align:middle line:84% or doing any other socially useful thing. 00:58:31.570 --> 00:58:35.050 align:middle line:84% We have been in the main indulging ourselves, 00:58:35.050 --> 00:58:36.400 align:middle line:90% amusing ourselves. 00:58:36.400 --> 00:58:38.170 align:middle line:90% We have been playing. 00:58:38.170 --> 00:58:40.720 align:middle line:84% Over the third quarter of her club sandwich, 00:58:40.720 --> 00:58:42.840 align:middle line:84% Susan lays that term on the table. 00:58:42.840 --> 00:58:44.500 align:middle line:90% Fenn knows what it be tokens. 00:58:44.500 --> 00:58:47.350 align:middle line:84% His wife's dark sometimes feeling that our years 00:58:47.350 --> 00:58:50.020 align:middle line:84% together, precious as they've been to both of us-- 00:58:50.020 --> 00:58:52.090 align:middle line:84% are themselves a kind of playing, 00:58:52.090 --> 00:58:55.960 align:middle line:84% not finally serious as the lives of Susan's child raising, 00:58:55.960 --> 00:58:59.920 align:middle line:84% house buying contemporaries might be said to be serious. 00:58:59.920 --> 00:59:02.290 align:middle line:84% Fenn won't have this, not tonight. 00:59:02.290 --> 00:59:03.310 align:middle line:90% You're wrung out, hon. 00:59:03.310 --> 00:59:04.900 align:middle line:90% We haven't been just playing. 00:59:04.900 --> 00:59:06.220 align:middle line:90% We've been also playing. 00:59:06.220 --> 00:59:08.200 align:middle line:84% We're on a well-earned sabbatical leave, 00:59:08.200 --> 00:59:09.520 align:middle line:90% my first since Spain. 00:59:09.520 --> 00:59:11.050 align:middle line:90% Your first since kindergarten. 00:59:11.050 --> 00:59:12.700 align:middle line:84% Things have happened in our lives. 00:59:12.700 --> 00:59:14.380 align:middle line:90% We have decisions to make. 00:59:14.380 --> 00:59:17.000 align:middle line:84% The idea of sabbaticals is to catch your breath, 00:59:17.000 --> 00:59:18.460 align:middle line:90% take stock, get perspective. 00:59:18.460 --> 00:59:19.840 align:middle line:90% That's what we've tried to do. 00:59:19.840 --> 00:59:20.740 align:middle line:90% We've read a lot. 00:59:20.740 --> 00:59:22.670 align:middle line:84% We've fought and talked as we've sailed. 00:59:22.670 --> 00:59:23.530 align:middle line:90% We've made notes. 00:59:23.530 --> 00:59:24.550 align:middle line:90% That reminds me. 00:59:24.550 --> 00:59:25.300 align:middle line:90% Never mind. 00:59:25.300 --> 00:59:28.450 align:middle line:84% Not everybody has to be DH Lawrence or Dostoevsky, 00:59:28.450 --> 00:59:29.230 align:middle line:90% thank heaven. 00:59:29.230 --> 00:59:32.560 align:middle line:84% You can be morally earnest without being morally afire. 00:59:32.560 --> 00:59:34.270 align:middle line:90% You can be serious with a smile. 00:59:34.270 --> 00:59:36.250 align:middle line:84% You can even be dreamy and self-indulgent 00:59:36.250 --> 00:59:38.770 align:middle line:84% in your personal life, which we aren't as a rule, 00:59:38.770 --> 00:59:41.200 align:middle line:84% and still get terrific things done. 00:59:41.200 --> 00:59:44.590 align:middle line:84% Susan knows all this and more but appreciate hearing it. 00:59:44.590 --> 00:59:45.850 align:middle line:90% And she is wrung out. 00:59:45.850 --> 00:59:47.980 align:middle line:84% Everything will have to keep until tomorrow. 00:59:47.980 --> 00:59:51.160 align:middle line:84% And unlike the lox and corned beef it will. 00:59:51.160 --> 00:59:53.290 align:middle line:90% Time to end this long chapter. 00:59:53.290 --> 00:59:55.960 align:middle line:84% We talk better when we're sailing. 00:59:55.960 --> 00:59:58.330 align:middle line:84% Don't forget to use the head while we're here. 00:59:58.330 --> 00:59:59.890 align:middle line:90% Susan climbs out of the booth. 00:59:59.890 --> 01:00:01.000 align:middle line:90% Do you have $0.15? 01:00:01.000 --> 01:00:02.650 align:middle line:90% I want to call Mimsi. 01:00:02.650 --> 01:00:04.330 align:middle line:90% Of course, you do. 01:00:04.330 --> 01:00:07.960 align:middle line:84% What about that other ordeal, the author asks. 01:00:07.960 --> 01:00:12.400 align:middle line:84% Susan's private one, counterpart to Fenwick's cardiac news 01:00:12.400 --> 01:00:16.330 align:middle line:90% report on the bus. 01:00:16.330 --> 01:00:20.110 align:middle line:90% Now-- OK. 01:00:20.110 --> 01:00:21.152 align:middle line:90% I'm running a hair over. 01:00:21.152 --> 01:00:22.360 align:middle line:90% I'll ask you to bear with me. 01:00:22.360 --> 01:00:24.830 align:middle line:84% I like everything to stop at 60 minutes on the tick. 01:00:24.830 --> 01:00:27.080 align:middle line:84% But I haven't read some of this before and it's short. 01:00:27.080 --> 01:00:29.260 align:middle line:84% So I'll try it with your indulgence. 01:00:29.260 --> 01:00:33.100 align:middle line:84% Because I think that perhaps the short final excerpt from later 01:00:33.100 --> 01:00:35.590 align:middle line:84% in the novel will give a hint about that 01:00:35.590 --> 01:00:37.910 align:middle line:84% second unreported ordeal of Susan 01:00:37.910 --> 01:00:41.350 align:middle line:84% then wind up a few of the pistols I've hung on the wall. 01:00:41.350 --> 01:00:43.523 align:middle line:84% If you can wind up pistols I figure [INAUDIBLE].. 01:00:43.523 --> 01:00:44.350 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 01:00:44.350 --> 01:00:47.470 align:middle line:84% It takes place a few days later when the couple have repaired 01:00:47.470 --> 01:00:50.530 align:middle line:84% Pokey's storm damage, sailed a bit farther, re-provisioned. 01:00:50.530 --> 01:00:52.300 align:middle line:84% Sailed a bit farther up the Chesapeake 01:00:52.300 --> 01:00:54.370 align:middle line:84% to a certain cove off Gibson Island 01:00:54.370 --> 01:00:56.530 align:middle line:84% harbor below Baltimore, from where 01:00:56.530 --> 01:00:59.020 align:middle line:84% they mean to do certain unspecified business 01:00:59.020 --> 01:01:00.640 align:middle line:90% in that city, Baltimore. 01:01:00.640 --> 01:01:02.170 align:middle line:90% It's late in the day. 01:01:02.170 --> 01:01:04.300 align:middle line:84% It's been implied already as you've heard 01:01:04.300 --> 01:01:06.280 align:middle line:90% that Susan is menstruating. 01:01:06.280 --> 01:01:08.530 align:middle line:84% Perhaps that fact contributes to her grouchiness 01:01:08.530 --> 01:01:09.790 align:middle line:90% in this episode. 01:01:09.790 --> 01:01:12.970 align:middle line:84% Now that they've weathered another sudden Chesapeake 01:01:12.970 --> 01:01:16.210 align:middle line:84% thunderstorm, anchored safely, and are discussing 01:01:16.210 --> 01:01:17.870 align:middle line:90% what they call their story. 01:01:17.870 --> 01:01:21.220 align:middle line:84% This excerpt begins with the subtitle minor characters, 01:01:21.220 --> 01:01:23.410 align:middle line:90% other subtitles quickly follow. 01:01:23.410 --> 01:01:25.600 align:middle line:84% Fenwick remarks, vis a vis Susan's 01:01:25.600 --> 01:01:28.000 align:middle line:84% Jewish gypsy mother Carmen B Seckler, 01:01:28.000 --> 01:01:30.460 align:middle line:84% the owner of Carmen's Place in Fells Point, 01:01:30.460 --> 01:01:33.580 align:middle line:84% Baltimore, that as yet we have a [INAUDIBLE] in our story. 01:01:33.580 --> 01:01:34.840 align:middle line:90% And I go to the text now. 01:01:34.840 --> 01:01:38.170 align:middle line:84% Little more than her name and some non dramatic exposition 01:01:38.170 --> 01:01:41.350 align:middle line:84% and long distance dialogue by radio telephone. 01:01:41.350 --> 01:01:44.260 align:middle line:84% In our present mood, Fenn wonders either aloud 01:01:44.260 --> 01:01:46.330 align:middle line:84% or to his notebook whether formidable [INAUDIBLE] 01:01:46.330 --> 01:01:48.340 align:middle line:84% and earning her keep in our story. 01:01:48.340 --> 01:01:51.790 align:middle line:84% The artist Claes Oldenberg once bought a pencil drawing 01:01:51.790 --> 01:01:54.940 align:middle line:84% by the artist Willem de Kooning, erased the drawing, 01:01:54.940 --> 01:01:57.850 align:middle line:84% and exhibited what was left under the title Erased de 01:01:57.850 --> 01:01:59.010 align:middle line:90% Kooning by Claes Oldenberg. 01:01:59.010 --> 01:02:01.880 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 01:02:01.880 --> 01:02:02.380 align:middle line:90% 01:02:02.380 --> 01:02:04.180 align:middle line:84% If Carmen B Seckler isn't going to do 01:02:04.180 --> 01:02:07.030 align:middle line:84% more than she's done so far towards advancing our action 01:02:07.030 --> 01:02:09.160 align:middle line:84% or percolating our plot, Fenn thinks maybe we 01:02:09.160 --> 01:02:11.800 align:middle line:84% ought to erase even what little we have of her in the story 01:02:11.800 --> 01:02:12.580 align:middle line:90% thus far. 01:02:12.580 --> 01:02:14.920 align:middle line:84% Drop her from the payroll even though she's 01:02:14.920 --> 01:02:17.950 align:middle line:84% Susan's mother, Manfred's ex-common law wife, 01:02:17.950 --> 01:02:20.950 align:middle line:84% and one of Fenwick's favorite people. 01:02:20.950 --> 01:02:22.930 align:middle line:90% Go ahead, says sullen Sue. 01:02:22.930 --> 01:02:25.030 align:middle line:84% This is a zero based budget story. 01:02:25.030 --> 01:02:26.560 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 01:02:26.560 --> 01:02:28.930 align:middle line:84% No hitchhikers, agrees dour Fenn. 01:02:28.930 --> 01:02:31.690 align:middle line:84% No freeloaders, no featherbedders. 01:02:31.690 --> 01:02:34.220 align:middle line:84% Gas, grass, or ass, growls Susan. 01:02:34.220 --> 01:02:35.500 align:middle line:90% Nobody rides free. 01:02:35.500 --> 01:02:38.440 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 01:02:38.440 --> 01:02:41.320 align:middle line:90% Fenn begs her pardon. 01:02:41.320 --> 01:02:44.470 align:middle line:84% That's what the initials stood for on Junior Parsons's crash 01:02:44.470 --> 01:02:46.780 align:middle line:84% helmet when he gave me a lift on his Harley Davidson 01:02:46.780 --> 01:02:48.190 align:middle line:84% from Swarthmore to Baltimore when 01:02:48.190 --> 01:02:52.300 align:middle line:84% I was hitching home 1964 or '65, my sophomore year. 01:02:52.300 --> 01:02:54.670 align:middle line:90% Fenwick says, pause. 01:02:54.670 --> 01:02:57.720 align:middle line:84% Says Susan he had crapulous skin and smelled like asafoetida, 01:02:57.720 --> 01:02:58.720 align:middle line:90% but he was kind of cute. 01:02:58.720 --> 01:03:02.110 align:middle line:90% Junior Parsons's GGANRF... 01:03:02.110 --> 01:03:05.320 align:middle line:90% says Fenwick. 01:03:05.320 --> 01:03:07.030 align:middle line:84% I bought him two gallons of regular. 01:03:07.030 --> 01:03:09.610 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 01:03:09.610 --> 01:03:11.950 align:middle line:90% Sigh of relief, says Fenwick. 01:03:11.950 --> 01:03:13.870 align:middle line:84% Well, let's give you my other due process 01:03:13.870 --> 01:03:14.770 align:middle line:90% before we delete her. 01:03:14.770 --> 01:03:16.750 align:middle line:84% I'll call her up on the radio telephone and tell her 01:03:16.750 --> 01:03:18.792 align:middle line:84% we'll be in town tomorrow and ask her what's new. 01:03:18.792 --> 01:03:20.530 align:middle line:90% We introduced her in act one. 01:03:20.530 --> 01:03:22.960 align:middle line:84% If she advances the action here in act two then 01:03:22.960 --> 01:03:25.930 align:middle line:84% Dr. Seckler rule of thrice for minor characters 01:03:25.930 --> 01:03:29.410 align:middle line:84% will oblige us to bring her on again in the last act. 01:03:29.410 --> 01:03:31.630 align:middle line:84% Let me call grandma first, says Susan. 01:03:31.630 --> 01:03:33.520 align:middle line:84% Why don't you go on up on Pokey's front porch 01:03:33.520 --> 01:03:35.800 align:middle line:84% and get some air and rig the anchor lights so grandma 01:03:35.800 --> 01:03:37.450 align:middle line:90% and I can talk. 01:03:37.450 --> 01:03:41.080 align:middle line:84% Next little section is called Smelt. Fenwick comes back 01:03:41.080 --> 01:03:45.460 align:middle line:84% below when he hears Susan over and out on the radio telephone. 01:03:45.460 --> 01:03:47.230 align:middle line:90% So what did you talk about? 01:03:47.230 --> 01:03:49.450 align:middle line:84% Despite worrisome half thoughts of his son 01:03:49.450 --> 01:03:51.880 align:middle line:84% Orrin, of Orrin's pregnant wife, Julie. 01:03:51.880 --> 01:03:54.130 align:middle line:84% Susan, it's been pleasant sitting up 01:03:54.130 --> 01:03:55.870 align:middle line:84% on the floor deck in the mild spring 01:03:55.870 --> 01:04:00.025 align:middle line:84% evening drizzle watching ground fog form around Red House Cove 01:04:00.025 --> 01:04:01.660 align:middle line:84% and listening to what little he can 01:04:01.660 --> 01:04:05.410 align:middle line:84% hear of Susan's conversation with Havah Moscowitz Seckler up 01:04:05.410 --> 01:04:06.640 align:middle line:90% in Pikesville. 01:04:06.640 --> 01:04:09.880 align:middle line:84% He's gratified to see that as almost always after talking 01:04:09.880 --> 01:04:13.960 align:middle line:84% to her grandmother, his friend is in much better humor. 01:04:13.960 --> 01:04:17.620 align:middle line:90% Smelt. Excuse me? 01:04:17.620 --> 01:04:19.720 align:middle line:84% Grandma couldn't remember smelt. I was trying 01:04:19.720 --> 01:04:23.254 align:middle line:90% to get her to remember smelts. 01:04:23.254 --> 01:04:25.690 align:middle line:90% Ah. 01:04:25.690 --> 01:04:27.460 align:middle line:84% We haven't made smelts in 100 years. 01:04:27.460 --> 01:04:29.793 align:middle line:84% So I thought while we're doing our business in Baltimore 01:04:29.793 --> 01:04:31.600 align:middle line:84% I'd stop by Lexington market and buy smelt. 01:04:31.600 --> 01:04:33.460 align:middle line:84% But I've forgotten how grandma used to fix them. 01:04:33.460 --> 01:04:35.710 align:middle line:84% So I asked her but she couldn't remember what smelt meant 01:04:35.710 --> 01:04:37.710 align:middle line:84% and I couldn't remember the Jewish word for them 01:04:37.710 --> 01:04:41.350 align:middle line:84% because smelt sounds Jewish already. 01:04:41.350 --> 01:04:43.267 align:middle line:84% And besides the hearing aid thing on her phone 01:04:43.267 --> 01:04:44.767 align:middle line:84% isn't working too well and there was 01:04:44.767 --> 01:04:46.660 align:middle line:84% some noise on the radio channel and I forgot 01:04:46.660 --> 01:04:47.920 align:middle line:90% to twiddle the squelch knob. 01:04:47.920 --> 01:04:50.970 align:middle line:84% Poor grandma, she was so weak and tired. 01:04:50.970 --> 01:04:53.233 align:middle line:90% Pleased, Fenn strokes his chin. 01:04:53.233 --> 01:04:55.150 align:middle line:84% Your second conversation with your grandmother 01:04:55.150 --> 01:04:57.520 align:middle line:84% in nine months and you talk for 10 minutes about 01:04:57.520 --> 01:05:00.370 align:middle line:84% smelts to get her to remember the word. 01:05:00.370 --> 01:05:02.152 align:middle line:84% I don't want grandma to forget things. 01:05:02.152 --> 01:05:03.610 align:middle line:84% It was hard getting through to her. 01:05:03.610 --> 01:05:05.860 align:middle line:84% She's so weak it wears her out to pay attention then 01:05:05.860 --> 01:05:07.690 align:middle line:84% she starts worrying she's senile. 01:05:07.690 --> 01:05:09.340 align:middle line:84% But boy, oh boy did she ever come 01:05:09.340 --> 01:05:12.640 align:middle line:84% to life when she realized it was smelts I was asking about. 01:05:12.640 --> 01:05:15.128 align:middle line:84% She calls them shmelts, like melted schmalts. 01:05:15.128 --> 01:05:16.795 align:middle line:84% No wonder I thought the word was Jewish. 01:05:16.795 --> 01:05:17.980 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 01:05:17.980 --> 01:05:19.310 align:middle line:90% But then she says, uh-huh. 01:05:19.310 --> 01:05:19.810 align:middle line:90% shmelts. 01:05:19.810 --> 01:05:20.830 align:middle line:90% Do I know shmelts. 01:05:20.830 --> 01:05:21.580 align:middle line:90% And off she goes. 01:05:21.580 --> 01:05:22.930 align:middle line:84% You take a little this, a little that. 01:05:22.930 --> 01:05:25.018 align:middle line:84% Did I remember Liebermans on Park Heights Avenue 01:05:25.018 --> 01:05:27.310 align:middle line:84% where she used to get her smoked whitefish and her carp 01:05:27.310 --> 01:05:30.460 align:middle line:84% for gefilte fish and her shmelts before the neighborhood changed 01:05:30.460 --> 01:05:34.210 align:middle line:84% and by Lieberman was Ravitz the tailor where grandpa Allan had 01:05:34.210 --> 01:05:34.840 align:middle line:90% his suits made. 01:05:34.840 --> 01:05:36.370 align:middle line:84% And on and on she goes, every store 01:05:36.370 --> 01:05:40.450 align:middle line:84% on the old block, how much for chicken livers in 1950. 01:05:40.450 --> 01:05:42.220 align:middle line:90% Fenn kisses her forehead. 01:05:42.220 --> 01:05:44.710 align:middle line:90% So how do we smelt smelts? 01:05:44.710 --> 01:05:45.670 align:middle line:90% Susan slumps. 01:05:45.670 --> 01:05:46.420 align:middle line:90% It doesn't matter. 01:05:46.420 --> 01:05:47.860 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 01:05:47.860 --> 01:05:49.210 align:middle line:90% Suse? 01:05:49.210 --> 01:05:51.370 align:middle line:84% Oh, basically, you fry the little fuckers. 01:05:51.370 --> 01:05:54.040 align:middle line:84% The point is grandma's got smelts to think about now 01:05:54.040 --> 01:05:55.270 align:middle line:90% till she sees me tomorrow. 01:05:55.270 --> 01:05:56.980 align:middle line:90% Call Ma, OK? 01:05:56.980 --> 01:06:00.640 align:middle line:84% This last is entitled Carmen B Seckler Stays in the Story 01:06:00.640 --> 01:06:05.200 align:middle line:84% For Sure But Has Trouble with the Facts of Life. 01:06:05.200 --> 01:06:05.830 align:middle line:90% OK. 01:06:05.830 --> 01:06:08.890 align:middle line:84% Do we tell her she's on notice in our story or not? 01:06:08.890 --> 01:06:10.480 align:middle line:90% Not. 01:06:10.480 --> 01:06:13.360 align:middle line:84% Fenwick places a call through the Baltimore marine operator 01:06:13.360 --> 01:06:16.690 align:middle line:84% to Carmen's place on Aliceanna street in Fells Point. 01:06:16.690 --> 01:06:18.790 align:middle line:84% The weather is uncertain for barbecuing off 01:06:18.790 --> 01:06:20.830 align:middle line:84% our stern pulpit, but Susan has already 01:06:20.830 --> 01:06:23.380 align:middle line:84% thought a small pork tenderloin roast since noon, 01:06:23.380 --> 01:06:24.550 align:middle line:90% we'll take the chance. 01:06:24.550 --> 01:06:28.030 align:middle line:84% She fits the charcoal grill into its bracket, starts the coal. 01:06:28.030 --> 01:06:32.170 align:middle line:84% Uncorks a Sonoma Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, Pokey's house red, 01:06:32.170 --> 01:06:34.180 align:middle line:84% for us to sip in lieu of cocktails 01:06:34.180 --> 01:06:36.340 align:middle line:84% while her husband and her mother talk. 01:06:36.340 --> 01:06:38.830 align:middle line:84% In five or seven gravelly sentences 01:06:38.830 --> 01:06:42.580 align:middle line:84% depending on punctuation, loudspeaker from the VHF, 01:06:42.580 --> 01:06:46.330 align:middle line:90% Carmen B Seckler pays her dues. 01:06:46.330 --> 01:06:49.510 align:middle line:84% Fenwick, where the hell are you going? 01:06:49.510 --> 01:06:52.640 align:middle line:84% Gibson Island harbor more or less, over. 01:06:52.640 --> 01:06:54.640 align:middle line:84% I sort of thought you were headed straight here. 01:06:54.640 --> 01:06:57.100 align:middle line:90% Did you see today's papers? 01:06:57.100 --> 01:06:58.480 align:middle line:90% Nope. 01:06:58.480 --> 01:07:00.100 align:middle line:84% Get a drink I was trying to reach you. 01:07:00.100 --> 01:07:03.230 align:middle line:84% Bad-- Fenn and sue fearing different things 01:07:03.230 --> 01:07:05.270 align:middle line:90% exchange a glance. 01:07:05.270 --> 01:07:07.240 align:middle line:90% What's up Carmen? 01:07:07.240 --> 01:07:11.630 align:middle line:84% Dugald Taylor died of a heart attack in Sydney, Australia. 01:07:11.630 --> 01:07:13.400 align:middle line:90% Susan makes a sound. 01:07:13.400 --> 01:07:15.800 align:middle line:90% Fenwick closes his eyes. 01:07:15.800 --> 01:07:18.980 align:middle line:84% It happened on a Qantas Airways 747, actually. 01:07:18.980 --> 01:07:20.090 align:middle line:90% No other details. 01:07:20.090 --> 01:07:22.640 align:middle line:90% Over. 01:07:22.640 --> 01:07:25.310 align:middle line:90% Save the paper for us, Carmen. 01:07:25.310 --> 01:07:26.150 align:middle line:90% I did already. 01:07:26.150 --> 01:07:28.220 align:middle line:90% You're coming in tomorrow. 01:07:28.220 --> 01:07:29.360 align:middle line:90% Early. 01:07:29.360 --> 01:07:32.540 align:middle line:84% Fenn shakes his head hard trying to register the news. 01:07:32.540 --> 01:07:35.555 align:middle line:84% I haven't checked the buses, before noon I hope. 01:07:35.555 --> 01:07:36.680 align:middle line:90% What do you mean the buses? 01:07:36.680 --> 01:07:38.780 align:middle line:90% I'll pick you up at 10:00. 01:07:38.780 --> 01:07:42.230 align:middle line:84% We'll be staying a few days, Carmen, you got room? 01:07:42.230 --> 01:07:45.770 align:middle line:90% Where to a goyishe question. 01:07:45.770 --> 01:07:47.150 align:middle line:90% What a Yiddish answer. 01:07:47.150 --> 01:07:49.430 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 01:07:49.430 --> 01:07:51.830 align:middle line:90% Did Doog have a history, Fenn? 01:07:51.830 --> 01:07:53.210 align:middle line:90% Heart stuff, not really. 01:07:53.210 --> 01:07:56.060 align:middle line:84% Yeah, one episode, milder than mine. 01:07:56.060 --> 01:07:57.830 align:middle line:90% Carmen pauses. 01:07:57.830 --> 01:07:58.760 align:middle line:90% So it happens. 01:07:58.760 --> 01:08:00.200 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry to bring the bad news. 01:08:00.200 --> 01:08:01.190 align:middle line:90% Drink a drink Fenwick. 01:08:01.190 --> 01:08:02.330 align:middle line:90% Let me talk to Susele. 01:08:02.330 --> 01:08:03.320 align:middle line:90% Over. 01:08:03.320 --> 01:08:05.210 align:middle line:84% Susan, tears streaming, shakes her 01:08:05.210 --> 01:08:08.240 align:middle line:84% head no, but takes the microphone Fenn and hands her. 01:08:08.240 --> 01:08:11.240 align:middle line:84% He sits on the settee berth, stunned. 01:08:11.240 --> 01:08:15.710 align:middle line:84% Susan wipes tears and swallows red wine and talks and listens. 01:08:15.710 --> 01:08:19.640 align:middle line:84% Conversation with Carmen B Seckler takes odd turns. 01:08:19.640 --> 01:08:22.040 align:middle line:84% Via life and death, and smelts again. 01:08:22.040 --> 01:08:24.560 align:middle line:84% And the confirmation of some appointments in town, 01:08:24.560 --> 01:08:26.390 align:middle line:90% hairdresser, gynecologist. 01:08:26.390 --> 01:08:28.880 align:middle line:84% Their talk comes to the elementary processes 01:08:28.880 --> 01:08:30.680 align:middle line:90% of sexual reproduction. 01:08:30.680 --> 01:08:34.430 align:middle line:84% All children, Carmen B Seckler declares, apropos something 01:08:34.430 --> 01:08:36.859 align:middle line:84% or other, are actually grandchildren. 01:08:36.859 --> 01:08:39.109 align:middle line:84% All parents are actually grandparents. 01:08:39.109 --> 01:08:40.880 align:middle line:90% Over. 01:08:40.880 --> 01:08:43.939 align:middle line:84% Susan blows her nose on a tissue. 01:08:43.939 --> 01:08:45.619 align:middle line:90% What? 01:08:45.619 --> 01:08:48.229 align:middle line:84% What's more in Carmen B Seckler's opinion, men 01:08:48.229 --> 01:08:51.050 align:middle line:84% and women, and men don't actually reproduce sexually. 01:08:51.050 --> 01:08:53.750 align:middle line:84% This truth has always given her trouble, she reports. 01:08:53.750 --> 01:08:55.979 align:middle line:84% She thinks it insufficiently appreciated, 01:08:55.979 --> 01:08:58.040 align:middle line:84% especially by a country that talks about nothing 01:08:58.040 --> 01:08:59.270 align:middle line:90% but sex, sex, sex. 01:08:59.270 --> 01:09:00.899 align:middle line:90% Over. 01:09:00.899 --> 01:09:04.021 align:middle line:90% Ma, you sound half smashed. 01:09:04.021 --> 01:09:05.479 align:middle line:84% Dugald was my friend too, you know. 01:09:05.479 --> 01:09:06.560 align:middle line:90% Half smashed. 01:09:06.560 --> 01:09:08.990 align:middle line:84% But you listen to what I'm saying about sex, Shushi. 01:09:08.990 --> 01:09:11.420 align:middle line:84% Human beings are only make pretend sexual. 01:09:11.420 --> 01:09:15.109 align:middle line:84% And like begets like only an alternate generation. 01:09:15.109 --> 01:09:17.450 align:middle line:84% Susan gives it all three syllables. 01:09:17.450 --> 01:09:21.770 align:middle line:84% Ma, these radio calls are expensive. 01:09:21.770 --> 01:09:23.779 align:middle line:84% So bill me, I'm going to tell you what I mean. 01:09:23.779 --> 01:09:26.024 align:middle line:84% I think of it a lot when I'm missing Manfred and Gus, 01:09:26.024 --> 01:09:27.649 align:middle line:84% and I'm thinking about your father too. 01:09:27.649 --> 01:09:29.029 align:middle line:90% And you, and Miriam, and Fenn. 01:09:29.029 --> 01:09:32.090 align:middle line:84% You listen now, you'll see it has to do. 01:09:32.090 --> 01:09:34.490 align:middle line:84% Susan only half believes in telepathy, 01:09:34.490 --> 01:09:36.290 align:middle line:84% extrasensory perception and the like 01:09:36.290 --> 01:09:38.330 align:middle line:90% by all which her mother swears. 01:09:38.330 --> 01:09:39.920 align:middle line:90% Fenwick, not even half. 01:09:39.920 --> 01:09:43.970 align:middle line:84% But both appreciate from frequent past experience 01:09:43.970 --> 01:09:47.420 align:middle line:84% an uncanniness in Carmen B Seckler, that might as well be 01:09:47.420 --> 01:09:48.319 align:middle line:90% called psychic. 01:09:48.319 --> 01:09:51.140 align:middle line:84% And she does not speak irrelevantly, ever. 01:09:51.140 --> 01:09:54.140 align:middle line:84% What she means in this instance is reconstructed some while 01:09:54.140 --> 01:09:56.510 align:middle line:84% after in Fenwick's notebook for our story. 01:09:56.510 --> 01:09:59.570 align:middle line:84% Is that a woman's true children are not her human daughters 01:09:59.570 --> 01:10:03.410 align:middle line:84% and sons, but the 400 or so over which she produces 01:10:03.410 --> 01:10:06.110 align:middle line:84% involuntarily and without male assistance 01:10:06.110 --> 01:10:09.650 align:middle line:84% in the 30 odd years from her menarche to menopause. 01:10:09.650 --> 01:10:12.380 align:middle line:84% A man's, the billions of spermatozoa 01:10:12.380 --> 01:10:16.910 align:middle line:84% he generates also asexually in the 60 plus years from puberty 01:10:16.910 --> 01:10:17.820 align:middle line:90% to death. 01:10:17.820 --> 01:10:20.690 align:middle line:84% These are our children, says Carmen B Seckler, 01:10:20.690 --> 01:10:24.590 align:middle line:84% whom we never know, nearly all of whom die without issue. 01:10:24.590 --> 01:10:27.440 align:middle line:84% Among a man's in particular, the mortality rate 01:10:27.440 --> 01:10:30.755 align:middle line:84% is brutally high exceeding even that of striped bass. 01:10:30.755 --> 01:10:33.950 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 01:10:33.950 --> 01:10:36.785 align:middle line:84% The normal mortality rate of striped bass or rock 01:10:36.785 --> 01:10:39.560 align:middle line:84% fish between the gamete and the fingerling stage 01:10:39.560 --> 01:10:43.790 align:middle line:90% is estimated at 99.99%. 01:10:43.790 --> 01:10:46.010 align:middle line:84% Were it a few tenths of a percent lower, 01:10:46.010 --> 01:10:49.165 align:middle line:84% the Chesapeake Bay would be overrun with rock fish. 01:10:49.165 --> 01:10:50.540 align:middle line:84% Were it one hundreds of a percent 01:10:50.540 --> 01:10:54.740 align:middle line:84% higher as it presently bids to become there would be none. 01:10:54.740 --> 01:10:58.670 align:middle line:84% But if a man produce only 60 million sperm per ejaculation, 01:10:58.670 --> 01:11:01.070 align:middle line:84% the middle range of human male fertility, 01:11:01.070 --> 01:11:03.650 align:middle line:84% and ejaculate on the average of thrice weekly 01:11:03.650 --> 01:11:06.920 align:middle line:84% for 60 years between puberty and death, dysfunction, 01:11:06.920 --> 01:11:07.910 align:middle line:90% or disinterest. 01:11:07.910 --> 01:11:12.650 align:middle line:84% And if with those 374,400, 000, 000 million he fathered two 01:11:12.650 --> 01:11:16.160 align:middle line:84% children, the mortality rate of his spermatozoa is on the order 01:11:16.160 --> 01:11:20.960 align:middle line:84% of 99.9 to the 11th power percent. 01:11:20.960 --> 01:11:24.980 align:middle line:84% Or 187,200,000, 000 dead for each survivor. 01:11:24.980 --> 01:11:27.860 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 01:11:27.860 --> 01:11:29.930 align:middle line:84% Confronted with these calculations 01:11:29.930 --> 01:11:32.090 align:middle line:84% Carmen B Seckler will remark that 01:11:32.090 --> 01:11:35.570 align:middle line:84% by comparison to such odds, the Jews' deportation 01:11:35.570 --> 01:11:38.075 align:middle line:84% to the Nazi death camp look like a minor hazard. 01:11:38.075 --> 01:11:39.530 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 01:11:39.530 --> 01:11:43.290 align:middle line:84% Though she alone of her entire neighborhood survived it. 01:11:43.290 --> 01:11:45.740 align:middle line:84% Fenwick will ponder the irony that such 01:11:45.740 --> 01:11:47.210 align:middle line:90% is the power of numbers. 01:11:47.210 --> 01:11:51.680 align:middle line:84% If a man despite these odds, decide in normal circumstances 01:11:51.680 --> 01:11:54.680 align:middle line:84% to father two children, he probably will. 01:11:54.680 --> 01:11:58.190 align:middle line:84% Susan will say, let's change the subject. 01:11:58.190 --> 01:12:01.160 align:middle line:84% Given the rare chance however, Carmen goes on. 01:12:01.160 --> 01:12:04.370 align:middle line:84% These offspring of ours are truly and totally sexual. 01:12:04.370 --> 01:12:08.090 align:middle line:84% Contrary, they come together not in the pseudo sexual way 01:12:08.090 --> 01:12:10.760 align:middle line:84% of their parents, one little pot stuck briefly 01:12:10.760 --> 01:12:13.400 align:middle line:84% into another little pot, and presently withdrawn. 01:12:13.400 --> 01:12:17.150 align:middle line:84% But literally heaps never to be their separate selves again 01:12:17.150 --> 01:12:19.470 align:middle line:84% but to become something both and neither, 01:12:19.470 --> 01:12:22.130 align:middle line:84% something unlike sperm or egg, but much 01:12:22.130 --> 01:12:24.110 align:middle line:84% like the parents of sperm and eggs. 01:12:24.110 --> 01:12:26.840 align:middle line:84% Something that in turn, but asexually 01:12:26.840 --> 01:12:28.910 align:middle line:90% may generate the likes of them. 01:12:28.910 --> 01:12:32.750 align:middle line:84% The Aristophanes of Plato's symposium in Carmen B Seckler's 01:12:32.750 --> 01:12:35.030 align:middle line:84% considered opinion was almost, but not 01:12:35.030 --> 01:12:37.910 align:middle line:84% quite right when he declared that erotic love is 01:12:37.910 --> 01:12:41.060 align:middle line:84% our vain search for our missing other half, ditto 01:12:41.060 --> 01:12:45.380 align:middle line:84% the unitary impulse, the mystics craving to be one with God. 01:12:45.380 --> 01:12:48.950 align:middle line:84% What both reflect, in fact, insists Carmen B Seckler, 01:12:48.950 --> 01:12:52.040 align:middle line:84% is not our sense of being the sundered fallen half 01:12:52.040 --> 01:12:55.790 align:middle line:84% of a primordial whole, but rather our unconscious memory 01:12:55.790 --> 01:12:58.100 align:middle line:84% of having been sexually conceived 01:12:58.100 --> 01:13:00.530 align:middle line:84% by the absolute union of contraries. 01:13:00.530 --> 01:13:02.630 align:middle line:90% We are not fallen, Susele. 01:13:02.630 --> 01:13:04.740 align:middle line:90% We are literally transcendent. 01:13:04.740 --> 01:13:08.270 align:middle line:84% But our non-human parents achieved what by mere sex 01:13:08.270 --> 01:13:10.910 align:middle line:84% we can never and that is the reason whether they know it 01:13:10.910 --> 01:13:13.815 align:middle line:84% or not, why all animals are sad after coitus. 01:13:13.815 --> 01:13:14.315 align:middle line:90% Over. 01:13:14.315 --> 01:13:17.546 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 01:13:17.546 --> 01:13:21.020 align:middle line:90% 01:13:21.020 --> 01:13:25.640 align:middle line:84% I'm not sad after coitus, Susan reports. 01:13:25.640 --> 01:13:26.270 align:middle line:90% As a rule. 01:13:26.270 --> 01:13:26.960 align:middle line:90% Neither is Fenn. 01:13:26.960 --> 01:13:30.114 align:middle line:84% We're more often hungry, or thirsty, or sleeping than sad 01:13:30.114 --> 01:13:31.070 align:middle line:90% after. 01:13:31.070 --> 01:13:32.630 align:middle line:90% Over. 01:13:32.630 --> 01:13:33.680 align:middle line:90% Don't change the subject. 01:13:33.680 --> 01:13:35.276 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 01:13:35.276 --> 01:13:37.550 align:middle line:84% Well, I've never understood that proverb, Ma. 01:13:37.550 --> 01:13:39.260 align:middle line:84% Maybe it applies to one night stands 01:13:39.260 --> 01:13:41.930 align:middle line:84% but I've enjoyed those too, haven't you? 01:13:41.930 --> 01:13:44.870 align:middle line:84% None of your business and don't change the subject. 01:13:44.870 --> 01:13:47.808 align:middle line:84% What are you quoting Plato's symposium anyhow? 01:13:47.808 --> 01:13:49.100 align:middle line:90% What are you pulling your rank? 01:13:49.100 --> 01:13:52.100 align:middle line:84% Nobody reads a book but you PhDs? 01:13:52.100 --> 01:13:54.020 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry, Ma. 01:13:54.020 --> 01:13:56.750 align:middle line:84% Manfred told me all that, but he was talking about being twins. 01:13:56.750 --> 01:13:58.100 align:middle line:90% Him and Fenwick, you and Miriam. 01:13:58.100 --> 01:13:59.330 align:middle line:90% The children stuff's mine. 01:13:59.330 --> 01:14:00.440 align:middle line:90% Don't change the subject. 01:14:00.440 --> 01:14:01.790 align:middle line:90% Over. 01:14:01.790 --> 01:14:03.590 align:middle line:90% What's the subject? 01:14:03.590 --> 01:14:05.060 align:middle line:84% The subject, whether what you just 01:14:05.060 --> 01:14:08.300 align:middle line:84% heard on your expensive radio has to do. 01:14:08.300 --> 01:14:09.230 align:middle line:90% It has to do. 01:14:09.230 --> 01:14:10.190 align:middle line:90% It has to do. 01:14:10.190 --> 01:14:11.750 align:middle line:90% I love you, Ma. 01:14:11.750 --> 01:14:12.485 align:middle line:90% I love you, Suse. 01:14:12.485 --> 01:14:13.652 align:middle line:90% I'll see you in the morning. 01:14:13.652 --> 01:14:14.990 align:middle line:90% Kiss Fenn. 01:14:14.990 --> 01:14:15.710 align:middle line:90% Don't worry. 01:14:15.710 --> 01:14:17.120 align:middle line:90% Poor Doog. 01:14:17.120 --> 01:14:19.630 align:middle line:90% I should say so, poor Doog. 01:14:19.630 --> 01:14:21.530 align:middle line:90% Out, Ma. 01:14:21.530 --> 01:14:24.980 align:middle line:84% Fenwick is up under the boom tent using up Kleenex. 01:14:24.980 --> 01:14:28.400 align:middle line:84% Susan slips her left hand down inside the front of her jeans 01:14:28.400 --> 01:14:31.970 align:middle line:84% and underpants and presses her belly between navel and pubic 01:14:31.970 --> 01:14:35.420 align:middle line:84% hair, pours herself another glass of red, 01:14:35.420 --> 01:14:38.600 align:middle line:84% fetches the last of the bottle upstairs to Fenn. 01:14:38.600 --> 01:14:41.690 align:middle line:84% We speak gravely together of Dugald Taylor, 01:14:41.690 --> 01:14:45.710 align:middle line:84% hairless, of possible memorial services, of other things. 01:14:45.710 --> 01:14:48.590 align:middle line:90% Presently we make dinner. 01:14:48.590 --> 01:14:52.910 align:middle line:84% Subdued Fenwick decides not to tell her now. 01:14:52.910 --> 01:14:57.500 align:middle line:84% Subdued Susan decides not to tell him now. 01:14:57.500 --> 01:15:00.850 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 01:15:00.850 --> 01:15:41.000 align:middle line:90%