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Show Acting Alone Page 52 and began to bellow at the top of his bass-baritone, gravel-filled lungs a secular blues song: "I went dow-w-w-wn to the Saint Paphnutius infirm'ry!" But suddenly he stopped in mid-bellow. He came to a halt and cocked an ear up toward an opened window on the second floor of the building they were approaching. Even over his own bellow his manic ears heard something that had been drowned completely out of Polycarpana's ears. This something he heard had the strange effect of abruptly shutting him up and actually making him blush. He continued walking, hurrying now to get indoors, under cover. He fastened his eyes on his basketball shoes for the rest of the way, almost in an attitude of shame. Astounded, she listened, too. What could it be? As she should have guessed, the sound was coming from the window of Sister Simone Stylite's sleeping porch. These single-bed porches had originally been built to provide tuberculars with a well-ventilated place to die. But today the wind was coming out of Simone's porch rather than in. Polycarpana could see the upper half of her friend's perfectly circular, doughy face peeping out over the sill of that window. Simone's big lips were whistling, her fat fingers snapping, the theme from "The Adams Family," a favorite show here at Gothic Saint Paphnutius. She had been making the famous music come in precise time to the professor's lurching walk, mocking his rhythms. Sarcastic, mean person, Polycarpana said with her eyes as she glared up at her friend and gave her a secret shush sign. You're not making any brilliant or subtle observation here. Anybody, even old Gorgonia, could |