Hot Night in the City

'I foresee us working together, tackling problems, and reaping successes together. We shall cherish one another, and we shall... satisfy one another.'

'...Satisfy. And I suppose this relationship is to be monogamous?'

'Oh yes, indeed, Matthew. Most strictly monogamous. You will never know how I have been hurt by the mindless women I've found here in the mornings, all rumpled and smelling of sleep.'

He nodded slowly, still dazed. 'So... if I want your help, I have to buy the whole package. Brains, crotch, and all. That's the deal, is it?'

'That is the deal.'

He turned again to the stack of manuscript on his desk. He reread two pages of his first-draft work, then the same passage in her revision. Then he tossed the papers aside and looked again at Miss Plimsoll in frank appraisal. Well, she has a nice complexion. And her hands aren't all that bad...

'It's true, isn't it, what you said about the characters and the situations being mine and mine only. All you do is tighten and polish a little. What you might call 'stylistic packaging'.'

She smiled faintly. 'That's all I do, Matthew. Just packaging.'

He puffed out a long sigh and shook his head as though to clear it. 'Tell me, Plimsoll. Are you... well, are you any good in the sack?'

Miss Plimsoll glanced down and smiled into her eyelashes. 'I take it you use the word 'sack' in a sense different from the sack you were intending to give me?'

'Ghm-m!' he growled. 'Well, are you? Good in the sack?'

A slight flush blossomed on her throat. She tipped up her pendant watch and glanced at it. 'We have an hour and twenty minutes before Mr Gold calls. That gives us sufficient time to investigate the matter, I should imagine.'

HOW THE ANIMALS GOT THEIR VOICES

AN ONONDAGAN PRIMAL TALE

Europeans moving westward across America collided with Iroquois pressing eastward to maintain contact with the Algonquin tribes that they followed as a shepherd follows his flocks, for raiding was an important part of their economy. The Europeans found the Five Nations to be the most advanced tribes in North America, both culturally and politically. They also found them to be fierce and ruthless fighters of a caliber they would not meet again until, a hundred years and half a continent later, they encountered the Sioux and the Apache.

Occupying the center of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Onondagas were neither so warlike as the Senecas nor such crafty traders as the Mohawks, but their role was essential to the union, for they were the conveners of inter-tribal meetings, and they acted as moderators in disputes, as befitted the tribe of Hiawatha who, with Dekana-widah, had molded the warring tribes into a peaceful league centuries earlier.

In addition, the Onondagas were custodians of tribal memory, guardians of tradition, and tellers of the ancient tales until, most of their warriors fallen in battle against land-hungry Europeans, the women, children, and old men were driven north to the haven of New France, where they settled on poor, stony farms. Lacking young men, they interbred with the French who had left their women behind in their pursuit of riches. My grandfather was a child of Onondaga/French parents.

In the early years of this century, the Onondaga gift for story-weaving was still alive here and there in pockets of their diaspora. It was from her formidable aunts that my mother learned tales of the sort ethnologists call primal myths. All the stories began by describing the creation of the world by Crayfish, Buzzard, and Wind working to the plan of She-Who-Creates-by-Speaking-Its-Name: always the same words spoken in the same rhythm... those repetitions that children find so enchanting and reassuring. After being attached to the origin of things, each tale would go its own way, each carrying a moral message meant to elevate and to guide.

When I was very young, my mother put me to bed with these stories, told in the harsh, old- fashioned French patois of her aunts, a sound that I associated with the stern-voiced chants of the Onondagan storytellers who used similar cautionary tales when they sought to persuade recalcitrant rebels to bend their will to that of the Confederacy. I remember only three of those stories: one that explains why maples lose their beautiful leaves in autumn and is a warning against pride, another that tells how North Star volunteered to remain in the cold northern sky to direct lost people and is about the virtues of service, and the story I'm going to tell you now, my childhood favorite because it involved many animals acting badly. Its message is obvious, but it was one the Indians failed to heed.

In the beginning, and for more than half of the Allotted Time there was no dry land, only sky and water and a thin mist where they met. Then She-Who-Creates-by-Speaking-Its-Name asked, 'Who will make Earth for me?' Now Crayfish was bored, so she said, 'I will make Earth for you.' And Crayfish went down to the bottom of the water and rolled balls of mud with her tail and piled them up, one upon the other, one upon the other, until the mud rose higher than the water.

Then She-Who-Creates-by-Speaking-Its-Name said, 'Yes, but this Earth is all flat and dull to the eye. Who will make it lively and diverse for me?' And Buzzard, who was bored, said, 'I will make it lively and diverse for you.' She flew over the vast expanse of soft mud, and when she flapped her mighty wings down, valleys were pressed into the land, and when she drew her mighty wings up, mountains were lifted from the land, and when she soared and glided, the great plains and plateaux were left flat.

Then She-Who-Creates-by-Speaking-Its-Name said, 'Yes, but this Earth is all soft and wet. Who will make it dry for me?' And Wind, who was bored, said, 'I will make it dry for you.' And she breathed over the hills and valleys and plains for a very long time until they were dry and hard. The fish of the sea wondered what possible use this dry hard place could have, for fish have no understanding of dry places, just as they have no experience of rain.

Then She-Who-Creates-by-Speaking-Its-Name spoke out the names of all the plants and all the animals, and each appeared as its name was spoken. Some went to live in the valleys, some in the mountains, some on the plains. And when Crayfish and Buzzard and Wind saw all this, they were very proud of themselves, believing that these plants and animals had been wrought from their own imaginations, for the power of She-Who-Creates-by- Speaking-Its-Name is not perceived as a waterfall is perceived; rather, it is perceived from within, as a dream is perceived. In their pride, Crayfish and Buzzard and Wind strutted and swaggered and sang of their wisdom and skill. And this is why old men dance the comic dance of Crayfish, Wind, and Buzzard to this day, strutting and swaggering and chanting those bragging songs that make children laugh at their foolishness.

Yet for all their strutting and bragging, in their hearts Crayfish and Buzzard and Wind were vexed because their fine work could not be seen and admired, for the world was wrapped in eternal darkness, as it shall be again at the end of the Allotted Time.

Now, Coyote, the most guileful of the animals, took up the cause of Crayfish and Buzzard and Wind, saying it was a shame that no one could see to admire their fine creation, but in fact Coyote's reason for despising the darkness was that she was a daylight hunter. Hearing Coyote's complaint, She-Who-Creates-by-Speaking-Its-Name whispered into the darkness, saying, 'Who will make light for me?' And Star whispered back, 'I shall make light for you.' And she turned and shone upon the land with all her might, but her glow was feeble, so Coyote still complained that it was not light enough, although Rabbit and Prairie Dog thought things were just fine as they were, for they are daylight prey. Coyote pouted and sulked and wheedled and whined until she got her way, so Star made children upon herself until they were many and many in the sky, and they all shone down with all their might, glittering and twinkling with the effort, but still Coyote grumbled that it was not light enough. So Moon said, 'I will help you, Star,' and she turned and shone upon the world. But Moon is fickle and inconstant by nature: sometimes only half of her shines, and sometimes only a quarter, and sometimes no part at all, so Coyote pouted and sulked until She-Who-Creates-by-Speaking-Its-Name went to the cave of Sun and begged her to go up into the sky. But Sun loved her splendid pink-and-gold cave and was loathe to leave it, so She-Who-Creates-by-Speaking-Its-Name bargained with Sun, saying that she would not have to shine all the time; she could return to her cave when she was tired of shining, and the darkness she left behind her would be called Night. But still Sun was reluctant to leave her cave, so She-Who-Creates-by-Speaking-Its-Name bargained further, promising Sun that after the Allotted Time was spent, she could return to her cave and leave the land in darkness forever. Finally Sun agreed to go into the sky