Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn Page B

well—heart-ailing, but otherwise well. We will not permit you to worry about her. She is writing to Nate as much as she can. There are no guarantees that her letters are getting through to him in the States; she can only trust that those to whom she passes them to smuggle out, with proper payment, will honor their contractual agreement.
    By the way, her epistles must still be written with all alphabetical restrictions intact, lest interception bring them to the L.E.B., the result being Tassie’s own banishment. (Although, I must say she is in a better position than most, without even a single violation to her name.) This is an important point; recently, several on their way to Pier Seven (then on to the States) wrote parting letters without employing the necessary caution with respect to current alphabetical restrictions, only to have the recipients themselves brought up on charges! Remember, as well, that L.E.B. thugs are still wont to engage in spot home searches, hoping to turn up anything containing the illicitabeticals. One cannot be too wary; last Thurby, a woman who lives near us was brought into L.E.B. Precinct 2. The charge: an unthought-through grocery list seen by a thug, there on her icebox.
    Pop is staying out late, coming home with a pungent alcohol smell about him. (I am not eager to tell you this, but Mother will not allow me to engage her on the topic). 48 hours ago he was put on notice by his wholesaler that U.S.-Nollop business transactions were moving to hiatal suspension. Were Pop to continue to create his miniatures, especially those popular moonshine vessels, he will have to emigrate to the U.S. Which means we will have to go too. I am sorry to say, Aunt Mittie, that I was not sympathetic. Because this obviously means leaving my eighteen-year home here, who can say how long? Leaving all that I cherish. Leaving Tassie. Leaving my sweet Aunt Mittie.
    There have been reports that Nollop expatriates are having a rough time in the States, are very much “at sea” in American society, in cultural isolation as it were—unable to melt into the proverbial American melting pot. It will be the same with us, I am certain. As long as we are there we will live as outcasts.
    I will tell Pop that we will live on my washerwoman’s income, onour meager savings, until this crisis comes to a close. Then, as expatriates begin to return home, house construction will surely begin anew, carpenters such as Pop naturally obtaining ample employment in the process.
    But let us say this never occurs. That the crisis continues. Because we cannot move below 47! Because the best brains at the university—the best brains in the nation cannot move us anywhere near 32 by November 16! What then?
    It is late. Pop has yet to come home. Tassie sits writing letters to Nate—letters he may never see.
    The gnawing apprehension has come again.
    Help me, sweet Aunt Mittie, not to give in to it.
    Love
,
    Your niece Ella
     
    NOLLOPVILLE
    Monty, October 16
    Ella,
    I cannot help you. Not now. Please tell Tassie: Rory is gone. It began this way: brash Council representatives, upon reaching his northern acreage, gave him papers that gave
them
authority to appropriate his property. No reason was given other than: “It is the Council’s wish.”
    “Meaning it isn’t Nollop’s wish?” was Rory’s angry response.
    “On the contrary. The Council serves
only
Nollop. By extension, then, Mr. Cummels, whatever laws the Council passes are laws which by their nature must certainly have met with Nollop’s approval.”
    “But I can’t possibly see how stealing another man’s property meets with Nollop’s approval.”
    “The reasons are strictly ecclesiastical in nature, Mr. Cummels. Perhaps the Council wishes to erect a tabernacle on this site.”
    Rory was seething, his countenance nearly vermilion in hue. My worry that moment was that poor Rory might have a coronary arrest!
    “A tabernacle—a temple—you actually mean—you actually mean