White Noise

By the time the narrator reached this point in his account, many people were crowded around, not only people who'd just emerged from the tu

It was at this point in the descent, as the term "crash landing" spread through the plane, with a pronounced vocal stress on the second word, that passengers in first class came scrambling and clawing through the curtains, literally climbing their way into the tourist section in order to avoid being the first to strike the ground. There were those in tourist who felt they ought to be made to go back. This sentiment was expressed not so much in words and actions as in terrible and inarticulate sounds, mainly cattle noises, an urgent and force-fed lowing. Suddenly the engines restarted. Just like that. Power, stability, control. The passengers, prepared for impact, were slow to adjust to the new wave of information. New sounds, a different flight path, a sense of being encased in solid tubing and not some polyurethane wrap. The smoking sign went on, an international hand with a cigarette. Stewardesses appeared with scented towelettes for cleaning blood and vomit. People slowly came out of their fetal positions, sat back limply. Four miles of prime-time terror. No one knew what to say. Being alive was a richness of sensation. Dozens of things, hundreds of things. The first officer walked down the aisle, smiling and chatting in an empty pleasant corporate way. His face had the rosy and confident polish that is familiar in handlers of large passenger aircraft. They looked at him and wondered why they'd been afraid.

I'd been pushed away from the narrator by people crowding in to listen, well over a hundred of them, dragging their shoulder bags and garment bags across the dusty floor. Just as I realized I was almost out of hearing range, I saw Bee standing next to me, her small face smooth and white in a mass of kinky hair. She jumped up into my embrace, smelling of jet exhaust.

"Where's the media?" she said.

"There is no media in Iron City."

'They went through all that for nothing?"

We found Tweedy and headed out to the car. There was a traffic jam on the outskirts of the city and we had to sit on a road outside an abandoned foundry. A thousand broken windows, street lights broken, darkness settling in. Bee sat in the middle of the rear seat in the lotus position. She seemed remarkably well rested after a journey that had spa

"Every child ought to have the opportunity to travel thousands of miles alone," Tweedy said, "for the sake of her self-esteem and independence of mind, with clothes and toiletries of her own choosing. The sooner we get them in the air, the better. Like swimming or ice skating. You have to start them young. It's one of the things I'm proudest to have accomplished with Bee. I sent her to Boston on Eastern when she was nine. I told Gra

Up ahead the taillights danced, the line began to move.

Barring mechanical failures, turbulent weather and terrorist acts, Tweedy said, an aircraft traveling at the speed of sound may be the last refuge of gracious living and civilized ma

19

Bee made us feel self-conscious at times, a punishment that visitors will unintentionally inflict on their complacent hosts. Her presence seemed to radiate a surgical light. We began to see ourselves as a group that acted without design, avoided making decisions, took turns being stupid and emotionally unstable, left wet towels everywhere, mislaid our youngest member. Whatever we did was suddenly a thing that seemed to need explaining. My wife was especially disconcerted. If Denise was a pint-sized commissar, nagging us to higher conscience, then Bee was a silent witness, calling the very meaning of our lives into question. I watched Babette stare into her cupped hands, aghast.

That chirping sound was just the radiator.

Bee was quietly disdainful of wisecracks, sarcasm and other family business. A year older than Denise, she was taller, thi

She was self-possessed and thoughtful, had brought us hand-carved gifts from the jungles. She took taxis to school and dance class, spoke a little Chinese, had once wired money to a stranded friend. I admired her in a distant and uneasy way, sensing a nameless threat, as if she were not my child at all but the sophisticated and self-reliant friend of one of my children. Was Murray right? Were we a fragile unit surrounded by hostile facts? Would I promote ignorance, prejudice and superstition to protect my family from the world?

On Christmas Day, Bee sat by the fireplace in our seldom used living room, watching the turquoise flames. She wore a long loose khaki outfit that looked casually expensive. I sat in the armchair with three or four gift boxes in my lap, apparel and tissue paper hanging out. My dog-eared copy of Mein Kampf rested on the floor at the side of the chair. Some of the other people were in the kitchen preparing the meal, some had gone upstairs to investigate their gifts in private. The TV said: "This creature has developed a complicated stomach in keeping with its leafy diet."

"I don't like this business with Mother," Bee said in a voice of cultivated distress. "She looks keyed-up all the time. Like she's worried about something but she's not sure what it is. It's Malcolm, of course. He's got his jungle. What does she have? A huge airy kitchen with a stove that belongs in a three-star restaurant in the provinces. She put all her energy into that kitchen, but for what? It's not a kitchen at all. It's her life, her middle age. Baba could enjoy a kitchen like that. It would be a kitchen to her. To Mother it's like a weird symbol of getting through a crisis, except she hasn't gotten through it."

"Your mother is not sure exactly who her husband is."

"That's not the basic problem. The basic problem is that she doesn't know who she is. Malcolm is in the highlands living on tree bark and snake. That's who Malcolm is. He needs heat and humidity. He's got like how many degrees in foreign affairs and economics but all he wants to do is squat under a tree and watch tribal people pack mud all over their bodies. They're fun to watch. What does Mother do for fun?"