The Twenty-Seventh City. Jonathan Franzen

out of it, and nothing explicit about the city-county merger either. Let Probst draw that conclusion himself.”

      “So basically you’re saying that Probst is in the State and will be susceptible to our suggestions.”

      “Basically, yes. It’s a situation waiting for him to walk into. He’s been sleeping on a train. You wake him up, tell him he’s in Warsaw. He’ll start speaking Polish.”

      “Assuming he knows the language.” Jammu twisted in her chair to see the wall clock. It was noon. “Prepare an abstract,” she said. “I’m seeing Wesley at three so I’ll need it by two. Not that I’m certain your plan is even close to being acceptable.” She fed some notes to her shredder, by way of illustration. “You say Probst hardly knows my name. What do you expect me to do, congratulate you for that? You say he’s vague and irrelevant when he talks to his daughter. To me it sounds like he’s an ordinary father. You say that killing his dog and making his daughter run away from home hasn’t bothered him. Well? Perhaps he’s a thick-skinned individual. You say he lacks historical consciousness. May I ask what St. Louisan doesn’t? What you have painted, Singh, is a portrait of a man in excellent mental health.”

      Singh had assumed an expression of dignified deafness that was reminiscent of Karam Bhandari. Jammu went on.

      “You say Probst isn’t on good terms with Barbara. But maybe that’s only on the surface. She sounds like she still must be a force. Maybe she pays attention for him. She sounds like a bad person for him to rely on. I want him hearing my voice, the voice of what I’m doing. Not hers.”

      “Go see him.”

      “No time. Not yet. I’d need a pretext.”

      “Well.” From his shirt pocket Singh produced an unusually fat-looking clove cigarette. He inspected it and put it back. “If Probst is by some chance not yet in the State, there’s more that can be done. I can step in and get Barbara any time. The groundwork is laid. But I’d prefer to hold off until we’ve seen how Probst reacts to Wesley. I recommend that you brief Wesley soon, in case Probst comes to see him of his own accord. Then if he hasn’t by the fourteenth, you can ask Wesley to approach him after Municipal Growth.”

      “All right.” Jammu rose from her chair. “Bring me an abstract at home, by two.”

      Barbara returned to pulling tendons with the pliers. In the stumps of the turkey’s legs there were tiny white eyes. She pressed down on the pink tissue surrounding one of them, worked the pliers into an acceptable grip, and began to tug. The phone rang. She lost her grip.

      “You son of a bitch.”

      She took hold of the tendon again and tugged hard as the phone rang a second and third time.

      “If that’s Audrey …”

      Abruptly the tendon ripped loose and slithered out, lavender and rigid like a hard-on, and trailing a maroon feather of flesh. She grabbed a dishtowel, a clean one, and rubbed the grease off her hands. She took the phone.

      “Hello,” she said.

      There was a silence, and she knew right away who it was.

      “Oh baby, hi,” she said. “Where are you?”

      “I’m at Duane’s.” The voice was very small.

      “Are you all right?”

      “Yes.” The volume surged, as if the line had cleared. “YES. HOW ARE YOU?”

      “We’re fine. Daddy just left for the football game. I’m putting together the turkey. It’s a big one. You and Duane want to come over?”

      After a silence, Luisa said, “No.” Her throat clicked.

      “That’s OK, you don’t have to. I just thought—was I that horrible to you?”

      “Doe.” There was a long sniff. “Yes.”

      “I’m sorry, then. I’m truly sorry. Will you forgive me sometime?” Barbara listened to her daughter cry. “Oh baby, what? Do you want me to come over? I can come right over.”

      “Doe.”

      “No, OK. You know I worry about you.”

      The turkey, which had been propped against the faucet, slid with a slap to the bottom of the sink.

      “Is Duane making you a nice dinner?”

      “Yes. A chicken. He’s stuffing it.” Luisa swallowed. “In the kitchen.”

      “We had a really nice talk last night—”

      “That’s what he said.”

      “He was really charming, I’d love to meet him sometime. I had—”

      “I’ll call you back, OK?”

      The line went dead.

      Barbara looked around as if awakening, and it was morning, very bright. She hoisted the turkey back up onto its rubbery wings and found another tendon. The phone rang.

      “Can I come and get some clothes tomorrow?”

      Since parking promised to be a problem, Probst was walking to the football game. From the chimneys of houses on Baker Avenue, smoke rose a few feet and hooked down, as it cooled, to collect in bluish pools above the lawns. There was no light inside the little stores on Big Bend Boulevard—Porter Paints, Kaegel Drug, the sci-fi bookshop—to compete with the bright sunshine on their windows, but Schnucks, the supermarket, was still doing business. Probst stopped in to buy the pint of heavy cream that Barbara had asked for. Then he joined the stream of fans issuing from the bowels of Webster Groves.

      There was a throng at the gates of Moss Field. The Visitors bleachers were packed with red-clad Pioneer fans, and the home stands, much larger, were also nearly full. Under the press box sat the Webster Groves Marching Statesmen, their brass bells and silver keys gleaming in the sun. Probst found a cozy seat near the south end of the stands, by the southern end zone, three rows from the top. To his right was a group of girls in tattered blue jeans, smoking cigarettes, and to his left was a rosy-cheeked couple in their forties, wearing orange. He felt anonymous and secure.

      “Are you for Webster?” asked the woman on his left. Mrs. Orange.

      “Yes.” Probst smiled courteously.

      “So are we.”

      He nodded in a manner indicating that he hadn’t come to the game to talk with strangers, and let the bag with the heavy cream in it slide between his hands and knees to the tier of concrete on which the bench rested. Up at the doors to the swimming pool locker rooms, where the teams were suiting up, students swarmed purposefully, as if some quality item were being handed out for free inside. Down by the field the Statesmen cheerleaders, a dozen girls in ivory-colored skirts and sweaters, began a cheer:

      The Pi - o - neers Think they’re real - ly tall, But the bigger they are, The barder they fall.

      Probst scanned the faces around him in search of Luisa, but he was certain she wasn’t here. He wondered if she might be at the Washington U. game, sitting with Duane Thompson. Barbara made much of the fact that Duane went to Washington U.; she liked to inflate the worth of whichever boy Luisa happened at the moment to hold stock in. Probst wasn’t fooled. It was clear to him that a girl who jumped out bathroom windows had a vision of her future radically different from the one he himself had entertained. As far as he was concerned, Thompson could be a total dropout.

      A great roar greeted the Pioneers as they trundled, like Marines, down the stairs to the playing field. A greater roar erupted when the Statesmen followed. Mr. and Mrs. Orange leaped to their feet, fists clenched and arms outstretched. “All right!” they yelled. Everybody stood up. Probst stood up.

      Kirkwood won the toss, and a Pioneer receiver, a loping black youth, took the kickoff at the 10-yard line. At the 35 one of the Statesmen tripped him from behind, sending him in a cartwheeling