“Minnie was a moocher,” sang Theda, knocking over her glass. “Swine! Warrior runts! Mammary rooting swine!”

“Knockers!” Annie shouted.

“Pear-shaped, pig-snouted, apple-round, melons, moons, bangles, dangles, udders,” howled Theda, rising, staggering, leaping into the middle of the room. “Men, the hog species, the boob lovers!”

“Tits!” shrieked Annie. They danced, they minced, they posed, living statues. “The Susquehanna,” whispered Theda.

“Shenandoah,” sighed Annie.

“The Missouri.”

“Monongahela…”

“The Santee…”

“Mississippi…”

“Allegheny…”

“The Nile!” Annie cried.

“The Nile?” questioned Theda, and in the middle of a burst of laughter, sank, spinning in slow motion to the floor, where she lay as if dead. The room spun on, still singing to itself.

Annie lurched to the bathroom, knelt and embraced the throat of the toilet bowl, resting her head on the cold porcelain, then shook like a rattle, and gave up her guts.

At last, weak, grateful for the feel of tile and porcelain, for the clear cold sound of flushing water, for all things cold, inanimate and odorless, she slipped to the floor and slept.

Chapter 15

Every noon hour, Max and Annie met at a bench in the central machine shed. All around them, the machines stood idle. The whole plant, the workers, the machines, the foremen, were waiting. There were as many explanations as there were people to account for the absence of materials, the lack of work, and, at the same time, the growing labor force. The air of inanition was at its worst in the late afternoon. Yet there were two shifts, and rumor had it there would soon be a graveyard shift from midnight to 8:00 A.M.

Annie was surprised to find that anyone she spoke to attributed sinister purposes, in this hiatus, either to the government or the shipbuilding plant, or both. But Max said it was characteristic of American working people to distrust government and industry. “It has nothing to do with political awareness,” he explained. “It’s in the character of the people.”

She had found a room in a private house on Oxford Street owned by a divorcee. Mrs. Ives lived with her two children and her mother, Mrs. Gannon, an alligator-skinned, knobby-fingered old woman who had spent most of her life in China. She made Annie’s lunch for her every morning, avocado or watercress sandwiches and a little glass jar filled with raw carrots and raisins. The old woman seemed to like her and was much given to slapping her on the back like a little jolly old man.