Patsy Clevenger arrived with Anthony Graves. Graves was short and round and in fair health for a man pushing seventy. He had been a scriptwriter for television. He brought treasure: lemons from his backyard and a canned ham. They settled him in a beach chair from which he could watch the proceedings like a benevolent uncle.
Ken pulled the kettle to the side, where sunlight spilling from the mirror would keep the chili simmering. “An hour,” he announced to nobody in particular. He dumped rice into another pot, added water, and set it in the focus. Fistfuls of vegetables went into the water pot. Cook them next. Chop up vegetables, boil or steam them, add mayonnaise and a chopped apple if you had it. Leave out a few vegetables, fiddle with the proportions, forget some of the spices, as long as you didn’t put in broccoli it was still Russian salad if you could get mayonnaise. Where was Sarge Harris?
Sarge didn’t arrive until four. “I got a late start, and then there was a godawful line for gas, and then I tried three markets for potatoes, but there weren’t any.” At least he had the eggs. Ken set Cora to making them into mayonnaise.
The sun was getting too low for cooking. Mayonnaise didn’t need heat. Coffee did. Better start water warming now. Sometimes there was no gas. Patsy’s flavored coffee could be drunk “iced”: room temperature, given the lack of ice.
The chili was gone, and a vegetable curry was disappearing, and the Copeleys’ young relatives were just keeping up with the demand for lemonade. There was breathing space for Ken to find conversations; but he tended to drift when his guests started talking about how terrible things were. By and large, they seemed cheerful enough. It felt like Cora might stay the night, and that would be nice, since it felt like Patsy would not.
Tarzana didn’t have electricity. Ken Dutton and his guests stayed outdoors. Light came from the bellies of the clouds, reflected from wherever the Los Angeles and San Fernando Valleys still had electricity. Occasionally a guest would go inside, feeling his way through the darkness toward the flickering light from the bathroom. At the next Stone Soup Party there would probably be no candles at all.
He’d boiled a few eggs to decorate the Russian salad. That looked like it would hold up until the party was over.
Some of the guests were cleaning out the pots. It had been settled without much discussion: better to get most of the cleaning done before Ken served coffee. The suspicion existed that anyone who conspicuously shirked cleanup duties might not be invited back. For some it was true.
Sarge poured a torrent of dirty water into a patio drain. “At least we kicked them out of Kansas,” he said.
Graves, who had seemed half as’eep in his beach chair, said, “Did we? I’m told they spent much of their efforts raiding libraries and collecting… well, memorabilia, items that might tell them something of our nature.”
“Sure. Wouldn’t you?”
“It was a reconnoitering expedition. In a way, it reminds me of the Phony War.”
“The what?”
The old man laughed. “I don’t blame you. Nineteen thirty-nine to summer of 1940. Germany and France were officially at war, you see. But nothing was happening. They stared at each other across the Maginot Line, between two lines of trenches, and did nothing. The papers called it the Phony War. I expect they didn’t like not having a story. For the rest of us, it was a calm and nervous time.”
“Like now. Nothing happening,”
“Precisely. Then the Nazis came rolling across and took France, and nobody said Phony War any more.”
Patsy followed through. “Suddenly they’ll bomb all the cities at once’?”
“They might give us a chance to surrender first. The trouble is, they’ve never answered any of our broadcasts. This may be that chance, by their lights, and we’re obliged to work out how to surrender. Well, how?”
“If we spend all our time thinking about how to surrender, thea they’ve got us beaten,” Patsy said heatedly. “I’d rather be trying to flatten them. Even if we lose a few cities.”
Ken nodded, though the thought brought a chill. Los Angeles? Behind him Marty said, “Ken, could I have a word with you?”
They stepped inside, found chairs by feel. It was too dark to read expressions. Faint sounds from somewhere in the house might indicate that a couple had felt their way to a couch or a bedroom. Life goes on.
Marty asked, “Were you serious about getting out?”
“Sure, Marty, but there are problems. I don’t own a piece of the Enclave.”
“Yeah. Well, I do, as long as the law holds up. Heh. After the law stops mattering is when a man needs something like the Enclave, and I’m short in my dues”
“Well, they might—”
“No, what I was thinking was John Fox. He’s in-this isn’t to get around-he’s in Shoshone, just outside of Death Valley, camping out till this is all over. He knows what he’s doing, Ken.”
“1 never knew you were much of a camper.”
“No. But Fox is, and he might be glad to see us if we showed up with food. Would you like to go with me?”
