The Church, too. Ringing.
Isn’t that delightful, Misses Jones asks everyone…nu, wasn’t it, she demands, just incredible, hymn — and as if in thanks for such a display she goes searching her pockets the nine of them for a spare coin to toss to the busker, a streetmusician still playing amid the echo of the bells, those onehanded, clapped clocks, these flutes and splits of champagne and Sekt, bubbly bottles, magnums, jeroboams, rehoboams, and methusalehs even rimmed with wet fingers, ringing a dry and fruity accompaniment to the tutti orchestra just tuningdown, too, that and his sister’s sweet, ethereal mezzo; in hat and sunglasses, she’s most definitely blind, though whether her handicap’s a condition preexisting or yet another directive from Management’s for the moment unclear, and who would presume to insult. As she gives, so does Mister Jones, and the others, they just have to keep up: hoping perhaps not as much to express their gratitude by charity as to obtain for themselves a pardon, at least the assurance of any afterlife preferable to light touring in hell. In this, discretion’s of the utmost importance: the Sandersons lower their eyes, pretend to search around in their purses and pockets before doing as the others do, as the Joneses have done, which is to remove scraps of clothing, strands of their hair, their shoes even, then the ropes of their belts, the only donations left them. Underground, an employee rewinds the Square Sounds, sets it for repeat, a circumambient loop cycled down from the pitch of the dogs…the orchestra dimming din to moos, even oinks, oathed obtestations, the blessings and curslings of commerce returned: May you grow brains! Market’s moody mistrust (mark madness, ruble rage, the zealotry of złoty, the grunting of groschen), as Mister Sanderson approaches the musician’s singing sister, slowly, he’s muttering his appreciation to himself as much as to her — thinking, perhaps she’s deaf, too, thinking aloud, just listen to her do that dies iræ and illa — he holds out his hand and with it holds hers, presses a rag of lining, from a pocket of his pants, into her palm hot with lint, then nods over his shoulder to his wife who she’s nodding to him; the musician’s sister drops their tips, buttons, snaps, zippers, and hems, into one of three pockets of her vest, each one set aside, earmarked, as it’s said: one for her, one for her brother, her lover or maybe he’s both, and of course one for Management, always.
