Don't Stop the Carnival by Herman Wouk Page A

with a cab driver who smelled unclean, smoked a foul cigar, and roared obscenities randomly all the way to Manhattan. Norman Paperman was home.
     
     
She murmured, "The tropics agree with you, obviously."
     
     
"Fountain of youth," he said. "Get those elbows out of the way."
     
     
"Oh, break it up, Norm." Henny pulled free, laughing. "I've got to get back to that turkey. What a marvelous color you've got! How come you're not exhausted?"
     
     
"I slept on the plane, and-I don't know, Henny, I feel as though I've just been born, that's all. Where's Hazel?"
     
     
"I guess with the Sending. She's bringing him to dinner."
     
     
"Oh no. No." He went back to his bags, bent and tottering. "Not the Sending. Not tonight. I feel old again."
     
     
"It was her idea. No Sheldon, no Hazel. What could I do?"
     
     
"Nothing, I guess," Norman groaned. "That's bad, though, isn't it? She never brought him to dinner before."
     
     
"It's not good," Henny said.
     
     
"Well, to hell with it," said Norman, opening his Mark Cross calfskin suitcase. "To hell with it. Let us be gay, at all costs. Here's a trivial souvenir of the tropics for you. Happy anniversary."
     
     
She unwrapped the gold paper in a flutter. "What is it? I should have bought you something, I guess, but-Norman." Henny was looking at an antique bracelet of Florentine silver and small diamonds nestled on purple velvet. Her voice became shaky and low. "You take this right back to the man who sold it to you."
     
     
"It's all right, isn't it?" He was removing his tie at a mirror. "It'll go with some of your things."
     
     
"It'll go with anything." She was screwing up her face in a characteristic way. Henny had a round pretty face with a small nose and a fairly full chin, and when she did this to her face she rather resembled a pug dog. "Norman, where ever did you find this? We can't afford it."
     
     
"Sure we can. There it is."
     
     
On the whole Norman thought it as well not to mention that Iris Tramm had guided him to the shop of the homosexual Turk on Prince of Wales Street; had vetoed several gewgaws which the mincing dealer had brought out; had compelled him at last to produce this bracelet, and had then proceeded to cut down the Turk's price to half. The bracelet had cost Paperman nine hundred and fifty dollars. He did not have much more free cash in the world. The plunge had come partly out of guilt over his flirtation with Iris, and there was the tropical sense of release and what-the-hell in it, too, but mostly it expressed the real way he felt about the wife of his youth. Norman Paperman loved his wife. Henny put up with him, despite his philandering, mainly because she knew he did; also because he amused her. Still, there had been times when she had been close to throwing him out.
     
     
Henny came close to him, holding the box. "Thanks," she said with some difficulty.
     
     
"Why? That's just for services rendered. And may I say I'm looking forward to twenty more years of the same:1 Don't change a thing."
     
     
"But what next, you nut? The Caribbean, honestly? A hotel?"
     
     
"Only if you want to, Henny. You see what's doing on Fifty-seventh Street? The sun was shining in Amerigo when I left. The hills were green. The sea was blue. The temperature was eighty degrees. And the breeze smelled like Arpege."
     
     
This was a misstatement. It was Iris Tramm, kissing him goodbye at the plane gate, who had smelled like Arpege.
     
     
"Keep talking," Henny said, "I'll probably weaken." She glanced at her watch. "Where in the lousy hell is our daughter? My dinner will be ruined. I'm going to telephone the Sending's apartment. I'll bet she's there."
     
     
3
     
     
It was a good thing Henny called. The girl with a giggle said that she and Shel had been painting his kitchen and had forgotten all about the anniversary dinner, but that they would come in fifteen minutes. Henny wisely took the turkey out of the oven, and they arrived an hour