Stone Mattress: Nine Tales(74)

He means he’s been using the computer and searching the Internet for clues. They aren’t allowed personal computers in Ambrosia, the official explanation being that the system isn’t up to speed. Wilma suspects the real reason is that they’re afraid the women will fall victim to online scammers and start up unsuitable romances and then piddle away their money, and the men will be sucked into the Internet porn and then get overheated and have heart attacks, thus causing Ambrosia Manor to be sued by indignant relatives who will claim the staff ought to have monitored the old boys more carefully.

So no individual computers; but they can use those in the Activity Centre, where controls can be put on access, as for prepubescent children. Though management tries to steer the inhabitants away from the addictive screens: they’d rather have the customers fumbling around in mounds of wet clay or gluing geometric shapes of cardboard into patterns; or playing bridge, which is supposed to delay the onset of dementia. Though, as Tobias says, with bridge players how can you tell? Wilma, who once played a lot of bridge, declines to comment.

Shoshanna, the occupational therapist, does the rounds at dinnertime, pestering the clientele about everyone’s need to express themselves through Art. When urged to participate in the finger-painting or pasta-necklace-making or whatever other bright idea Shoshanna has cooked up to give them all a reason for staying on the planet for another sunrise, Wilma pleads her limited sight. Shoshanna once upped the ante with some yarn about blind potters, several of whom had achieved international recognition for their beautiful hand-thrown ceramics, and wouldn’t Wilma like to expand her horizons by giving it a try? But Wilma froze her out. “Old dog.” She smiled with her hard, false teeth. “No new tricks.”

As for the Internet porn, some of the crafty lechers have cellphones and treat themselves to the full freakshow that way. This is according to Tobias, who gossips with anyone in sight when he isn’t gossiping with Wilma. He claims he himself doesn’t bother with the tawdry and inelegant cellphone porn, because the women on view are too tiny. There’s a limit, he says, as to how much you can shrink the female body without turning it into an ant with mammary glands. Wilma doesn’t entirely believe this tale of abstinence, though maybe he’s not lying: he just might find his own invented sagas more erotic than anything a mere phone can come up with, and they have the added virtue of starring him.

“What else did you learn?” Wilma asks. All around them is the clanking of spoons on china, the murmur of thinning voices, an insect vibration.

“They say it’s their turn,” says Tobias. “That’s why they put Our Turn on the signs.”

“Oh,” says Wilma. Light dawns: Artern. Our Turn. She’d misheard. “Their turn at what?”

“At life, they say. I heard one of them on the television news; naturally they’re being interviewed all over the place. They say we’ve had our turn, those our age; they say we messed it up. Killing the planet with our own greed and so forth.”

“They have a point there,” says Wilma. “We did mess it up. Not on purpose, though.”

“They’re only socialists,” says Tobias. He has a dim opinion of socialists; everyone he doesn’t like is a socialist in some disguise or other. “Just lazy socialists, always trying to grab what others worked for.”

Wilma has never been sure how Tobias made his money, enough money to be able to afford not only all the ex-wives, but his quite large suite in Ambrosia Manor. She suspects he was involved in some dubious business deals in countries in which all business deals are dubious, but he’s cagey about his earlier financial life. All he’ll say is that he owned several companies in international trade and made sound investments, though he doesn’t call himself rich. But then rich people never call themselves rich: they call themselves comfortable.

Wilma herself was comfortable, back when her husband was alive. She’s probably still comfortable. She no longer pays much attention to her savings: a private management company takes care of that. Alyson keeps an eye on them, as much as she can from the West Coast. Ambrosia Manor hasn’t kicked Wilma out onto the street, so the bills must be getting paid.

“What do they want from us?” she asks, trying not to sound peevish. “Those people with the signs. For heaven’s sakes. It’s not as if we can do anything.”

“They say they want us to make room. They want us to move over. Some of the signs say that: Move Over.”

“That means die, I suppose,” says Wilma. “Are there any rolls today?” Sometimes there are the most delicious Parker House rolls, fresh from the oven. As a way of helping their clients feel at home, the Ambrosia Manor dieticians make a conscious effort to re-create what they imagine were the menus of seventy or eighty years ago. Macaroni and cheese, soufflés, custards, rice pudding, Jell-O dolloped with whipped cream. These menus have the added virtue of being soft, and thus no threat to wobbly teeth.

“No,” says Tobias. “No rolls. Now they are bringing the chicken pot pies.”

“Do you think they’re dangerous?” says Wilma.

“Not here,” says Tobias. “But in other countries they are burning things down. This group. They say they are international. They say millions are rising up.”

“Oh, they’re always burning things down in other countries,” Wilma says lightly. If I live that long, she hears herself saying to her former dentist. It’s the same throwaway tone: None of this can possibly ever happen to me.