Chapter 11 The Snow Dance
All of the children in Grace House were now sick, for even those who had shown promise of recovery had relapsed. Of the adults, Faith and Humility were down also, and Love, their grown up daughter, was tottery. So those unaccustomed to tending the sick were recruited. Bits Bitterly was everywhere, going from sick room to sick room. Even Dignity found that he must leave his book-publicizing concerns in order to shuttle weak and woozy children back and forth from the Mammon Mart Community Clinic.
On a cold, snowy afternoon he brought little Peace home and got her back into bed. The doctors Modern and Conventional had provided the usual pills and advice, but behind all their assurances and glib prognoses, Dignity was beginning to detect uncertainty. Apparently, the malady afflicting Grace House was unusual. This was worrisome.
Peace, now settled under the covers, was feverish and uncomfortable. Dignity sat by her, not knowing what to do.
“Uncle Dig, will you tell Aunt Obscurity that I’m home from the doctors?”
Dignity winced. “Don’t call her Aunt, sweetie. What do you want with her?”
“And can we move my bed over to the window? Aunt Ob—I mean, Obscurity said this morning that she was going to cheer me up by bringing snow, and she did; and she said that she’s going to dance a special snow dance just for me outside my window. So will you tell her?”
“Peace, you need rest. I really don’t want you any closer to Obscurity. I don’t think we should trust her.”
“I like her,” said Peace with certainty. Then she looked thoughtful. “I love her,” she said more quietly.
Dignity had no answer for this. Obscurity had a knack with the kids. Though normally stony-faced and inarticulate, she came alive in the children’s presence, constantly finding ways to cheer and divert them even in their sickness.
Peace was getting up. “Please! Let’s move the bed.”
Grudgingly, Dignity moved the bed for her, and with his promise wrung out of him, went in search of Obscurity. He discovered her as he passed the library on the way up to her room.
He stepped in. “What are you doing?”
She had taken apart the library telephone and was doing something to the insides. “Fixing the phone,” she said without looking up. “How’s Peace?”
“The doctors are no help,” he said. “I’m losing confidence in them. What’s wrong with the phone?”
“It called out,” she said. She finished whatever she was doing and started screwing it back together. “I have to go now.”
“I know,” he said, still puzzling over her reply about the phone. “Peace is watching for you.”
“Oh, you know about that?”
“Yes. Whatever. What did you say is wrong with the phone? I’m expecting some important calls from the newspaper and the City Magazine, so I can’t have any gum in the works now.”
She looked up sharply from her work. “You’re trying to get them to advertise for you.”
“That’s right, for The Pride Story. And I mailed press releases to both yesterday. You wouldn’t know that because it was your day off.”
“Who told you that? I don’t have any days off.”
“Well, you weren’t here.”
“Not all day. I had to go pick up some parts for the fog machine. I saw your envelopes in the mailbox.”
Dignity stiffened. “And did you leave them alone?”
“Yes.” She picked up another screw, dropped it into place, and began to tighten it. “However—”
“What? What do you mean you don’t take a day off?”
“However, I called the magazine and the newspaper and told them to disregard your press releases. Sorry.”
Dignity did not reply at once. He had learned that shouting and accusing did no good with Obscurity. With the Embassy behind her, she won every time. So, outrageous as this was, he must go straight to Grace. That was what he had been told to do.
“Give me that phone,” he said.
She offered it to him.
He snatched it in a fever of haste, but paused, unable to decide whether to call the Embassy first or the media. Finally, as Obscurity glided out, he punched in the number of the City Magazine. He waited a moment but got neither a ring or a busy signal. He shook it, punched in the number again. Still nothing. He tried the newspaper’s number and then the Embassy’s. He could not reach anyone.
“Well, if it wasn’t broken before, it is now,” he muttered. “Is this what she calls fixing it?”
Then an odd suspicion entered his head. Had Obscurity sabotaged the phone? Was she going so far as to damage property? With a face red with emotion he hurried to the nearest room with another phone, Reason and Truth’s room at the end of the hall. The door was open and the room unoccupied, so he went in and tried the Embassy’s number. Nothing. He was about to try the City Magazine when the phone sounded jarringly in his hand. He put it to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Dignity.”
“Grace! Ambassador, you’re just the person I want to talk to. You said to tell you if I had anything more to say about Obscurity. Well, she’s gone clean off her rocker. She’s been sabotaging the phones, and she called the City Magazine and the newspaper and told them to ignore my press releases.”
“Press releases, Dignity? For the book then?”
“Yes, and I’ll have to call them and ask them to retract the retractions, which is so awkward. Only the phones don’t call out!”
“That’s a shame,” said Grace. “By the way, look out the window if you’re near one. The snowstorm is looking beautiful.”
Almost involuntarily, Dignity drifted toward the window. “Now I know you told us she’s OK, but Ambassador, you’re away there at the Embassy so much lately that you can’t realize what we’re going through. And we...my, it really is coming down, isn’t it?”
“Nice large flakes,” said Grace. “They put me in mind of the winter concerto from Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons.’” The old man began to hum it.
“But about Obscurity, Ambassador, surely this is beyond even the carte blanche you seem to have given her. We have to have limits, sir. Even if you think she means well, her mental stability has to be in question.”
“You don’t really think so, Dignity?”
“Yes, I do and....” He paused and squinted. “Some maniac is waving at me from across the street. No, she’s sort of dancing around, waving her arms. Oh good God, it’s Obscurity. It’s the snow dance.”
“Dancing in the snow?” said Grace. “Sounds invigorating. Well, I just called to let you know that Truth and I will be away again this evening. You’ll tell Reason, won’t you? The New Year’s Eve festivities are requiring more preparation than anyone expected.”
Obscurity was swirling slowly, gracefully through a curtain of flakes. Her powder-blue jacket stood out against the white embankment behind her. Her pale gloves flowed through the air like birds. Dignity thought of Peace watching this from the bedroom on the floor below. Her feverish little eyes would be glowing. She would be enchanted.
“And do tell Miss Obscurity that we’re leaving an opening for her in the middle of the program. Then as for Christmas...”
Dignity was not listening. Obscurity had dropped backward against the embankment behind her and was ‘making an angel’ in the snow, her arms and legs scissoring. She hopped up again, gestured toward the angel, and resumed her dance.
“So we’ll take care of any little difficulties you may be having that morning,” Grace was saying. “That’s all then. Is the snowfall still beautiful there?”
“Beautiful,” Dignity said.
“Yes, here too. I’ll let you go, Dignity. And don’t worry about Obscurity. She’s only doing her job.”
Recalled to his purpose, he turned away from the window. “No, she’s diabolical. She’s ruining the publicity campaign. What is it with her? How much do you really know abo
ut her, Ambassador?”
“I can number the very hairs of her head,” said Grace.
“Yeah, and what is it with her hair? Was she struck by lightning or what?”
“Something like that. I have to let you go now.”
“But Ambassador—”
“You can talk to me again soon. I have to run.”
He hung up, and Dignity threw down the phone in frustration. It was no use trying to call back, not after Obscurity’s ‘fixing.’ It was no use trying to call anyone.
He turned again to the window. The snow clouds were thicker now, allowing less light, but he could see Obscurity slowly turning and swaying in the gloom across the street. It was a long snow dance.