Polostan

She was crazy: a word Dawn had lost the habit of using as a result of hanging around with educated persons elevated through study of Freudian psychoanalysis. But it was a fine word in places like this, where—never mind what Freud might say—people, especially ones who’d found a way of getting a little bit of power, could simply go off the rails and wander off into a shadow world that was half made up, and half misseen through baroque systems of delusion. She was crazy. Crazy, and probably on drugs—most likely some kind of amphetamine. The most Dawn could possibly do was question her calmly, even meekly, in the hope of connecting with whatever part of her mind might still be sound.

the fact of the matter was that this sort of explanation jibed perfectly with the way men like Beria and Ordzhonikidze were wont to view the world. Namely that the outward pretenses maintained by important men—scientists, in this case—concealed subtle and hidden motives, and that to understand as much was to be sophisticated and therefore strong.

You’re a grown woman now. Only sixteen, I know, but you’ve experienced more than most women twice your age, and that counts for something. You’re so big and strong, I can’t believe you’re my daughter.” I’m not, she might have told him. While you were on a tramp steamer to Liverpool to organize dockworkers, you were cuckolded by a six-foot-four-inch stickup man named Jim O’Faolain, who was hanged a month after I was born.

But what about Mama? Dawn asked. “Mama is fine,” Papa said. “She and I had differences.” Which made Dawn think she must not know the correct meaning of the word “difference” since it seemed that the entire point of a Mama and a Papa was for them to be different.

God or of man. The only medical professional who could conceivably be called as witness was Mrs. Kidd. Why go to all the trouble of having

Reggie was still waiting, as a gun waits for its owner to pull the trigger.

getting respect was a matter of acting like you deserved it while pretending you didn’t care;

To make a man wait is a lady’s prerogative.

Designing a thing. Planning it. Then seeing it made real.” “That’s what engineers do!

They class them as cold-blooded killers, They say they are heartless and mean, But I say this with pride: That I once knew Clyde When he was honest and upright and clean.

But at some level even the most selfish and degenerate man knew what was expected of him. You never knew when you were going to be tested. It was what you did in such a moment that told what kind of man you were. He did not make his choice easily or without misgivings. But after those first few moments of uneasy consideration, an alteration came over him that reminded her in some way of the balloon being slowly filled with hydrogen. At first just a flaccid sack, supine on the field, but by the time it was over, inflated and shapely with power.

would begin to take it seriously once they understood that the women took it seriously. This was surprising. A separation would occur. Men who did not like being surprised—stupid men—would turn away and mutter rude things. Men who rather liked being surprised—and she was pretty sure Owen was one of those—would find in it something to take them out of their ennui.