The Daredevils by Gary Amdahl Page B

the war in Europe. No. It made no sense. People would not be celebrating carnage and horror. Perhaps it was not supposed to make sense . . .? Why did he wish anything to make sense? He of all people! He went back down the stairs and into thetheater and stood at the railing of the little balcony. The stage was now full of people. His people. “Friends.” They were arranged in small groups and engaged in discussions. Some of these conversations were calculated, their subjects free of apparent context or even forthrightly nonsensical, their objectives contrived and variable, delivered with courtly animation from angelically bright faces—this was a vision of hell. The other conversations were conducted in dusty darkness, or at least away from the pools of light, by nearly immobile and featureless figures, and this was heaven.
    Charles breathed evenly and slowly though he could feel his heart pounding in his fingertips and teeth, and he smiled faintly as these visions appeared and disappeared before and below him. The feverish light did indeed seem to determine the quality of life, as he had always suspected. He had read, in an account of the Indian wars, that one great and defeated chief had weighed his options and declared that heaven was no place for a man and he wanted nothing to do with it—and yet his place, Charles thought, was so clearly here on the border of heaven and hell that he could not help but feel some relief at the sight of it.
    An actress he hoped might prove suitable for the big roles sat wrapped in mummy-like winding sheets approximately in the center of the little theater, under its chandelier, which hung from the underside of a shallow dome painted with peacocks, owls, a buck deer and doe, vines with berries and flowers, and a wizard with a flask out of which streamed a banner with the words eamus quesitum quattuor elementorum naturas .
    Her name was Vera.
    Vera K., born of Russian parents in Muscatine, Iowa, where she had worked in a button factory.
    Muscatine was the Button Capital of the World.
    He picked up a sheaf of papers from the seat next to him, riffled through them until he found the page he was looking for, then read it aloud but not loudly, looking down at her. She probably couldn’t hear him, but would she turn round, look up?
    â€œWhat is for you the greatest unhappiness?”
    â€œI sometimes, too often, think I am no longer competent to live in the world.”
    â€œIn what place would you like to live?”
    â€œThe world.”
    â€œWhat is your ideal of earthly happiness?”
    â€œForgoing happiness.”
    â€œFor what faults do you have the greatest indulgence?”
    â€œI’m not sure what you mean by ‘fault.’”
    â€œWhat is your principal fault?”
    â€œAh: my recurring inability to believe I can live in the world.”
    â€œWhat would you like to be?”
    â€œOh! What all the young women have said to you goes double for me: the star of your shows!”
    â€œWhat is your favorite quality in a man?”
    â€œA fine critical apparatus focused on whether or not I am kidding.”
    â€œWhat is your favorite quality in a woman?”
    â€œA fine critical apparatus focused on whether or not I am kidding.”
    â€œWhat is your favorite occupation?”
    â€œActing truly.”
    â€œWhat is your present state of mind?”
    â€œA nearly overwhelming feeling of joy that I can live in the world after all.”
    Vera, alone in all of histrionic San Francisco, had been worthy of the Polite Parlor Questionnaire. In her presence, as she answered the questions slowly and eloquently, he had not been able to feel like anything but a prince in a fairy tale.
    He stared down at her intensely, imagining taking her sheet off and finding her naked beneath it, moving his hands over her neck and shoulders and breasts, kissing her deeply but languidly—and falling again under the spell of imagination, believing