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Show J 7? She does it to the name of love. The bride goes .long too. l„ the name of love." "It's just a ceremony." "Just dreck." "Amelia isn't like that." "Amelia is. a fool_." I was startled. He dropped the cigarette and stepped down on it hard. "And I'm a bigger one." "Naw," I said, shaking my head. "You two are above all this." He looked at me coldly. "Shit," he said, and walked out. I knew my words were insipid when I said them but I also knew that I was impotent to help him, to help anything, and I didn't care. He had chosen the deep water, the sharks, so let him j^nin tjiVln it, if he could. Up his. Still, I came out of the John feeling lousy, notice lieved. They were all waiting for me and X I felt a moment of panic. But I found ray place, after which there was a long period of confused waiting, and then the machinery got into motion, cranking up, clanking along. I felt like a stiff part of the machine, a stiff new part, a stick in black clothes to scare the crows, a costumed zombie in a charade. We moved into the ballroom and down the aisle between the folding chairs and heads were turning and I wondered if I had my yarraulke on right. Ben and Hal Dove appeared, as grave as at a funeral. Then Amelia in her virginal white came walking with measured tread on her father's arm, a prisoner within the music, face frozen, walking on beat like a big doll, walking as if to her doom. Just before Mr. Rubintf handed her over, she gave Ben a small, sad smile, as if she had realized at last how wrong this all was. Then Ben joined her under the canopy of flowers as if to support her, and the rabbi lifted his head to speak. He had a deep and dramatic voice, which now had gotten deeper and more dramatic -- he would have made an impressive actor, a great ham. And something happened then. For the man loved words, spoke as fluently as water flowed, words spilling out bright and flowing, words as roundly rich as molten silver. |
