Genesis Read Online Free

nobody.
    The car—their large but unpretentious gray Panache sedan, perfect for the family with adolescents—was parked behind the theater, a leisurely five-minute walk on any other night. But it was far too wet for leisure and they were far too fearful. Fearful for Freda, of course, but also for themselves. Her shoulder bag was dangerous. What might it hold? And fractious men in uniform are always frightening. Any second now and they might hear beyond the clatter of the rain the sound of running boots, the cliché call for them to stop and raise their hands. So Lix and Mouetta didn’t speak as they hurried through the rain, encountering what everybody knows but needs reminding of, that speed is no protection from a storm. He ran ahead of her to open up the car but both of them were sopping and sobered by the time they’d slammed shut the doors. For a few moments, the smell of drenched clothes was stronger than the seat leather, even, richer than the perfume and the gasoline.

    Mouetta—wet—looked flushed and beautiful, Lix thought. Why hadn’t he noticed before how much trouble she had gone to, to be attractive for him on their anniversary? A bluish calf-length skirt, a favorite blouse he had brought her from L.A., front buttons even, that pretty necklace a child might wear. Cousin Freda, the radical, had blinded him, had shouldered out his wife. She always did. She always had. There’s something deadening about the vivacious company of prettier and older cousins. Mouetta was a sort of beauty too, although a quieter sort, not theatrical but … well, homely was an unfair word. Unaffected, perhaps. Contained. She was the kind—and this was cruel—whose company was supportive rather than flattering. She’d only turn the heads of wiser men. But now that she was wet and dramatized by their short run, her beauty seemed enhanced, her perfumes activated by the rain, her hair shining like someone found soaked and streaming in the shower room, her blouse and skin a clinging unity. He should have been thinking of Freda, her arrest, what they should do for her release, their duties as citizens and their obligations as radicals. But he was not.
    â€œWhat now?” he asked. They hadn’t had sex in the car for months.
    â€œWe’ve got the keys to Freda’s office,” she replied. She held up the shoulder bag. “We’ll get the guy. And then we’ll have to find Freda a lawyer …”
    â€œDon’t worry about Freda. They’ll let her out in the morning. She’ll dine off this for years. ‘My night in chains,’ et cetera!”
    â€œDon’t be small-minded, Lix. What’s done is done.” She meant that both of them should always do their best to bury the embarrassment
of George’s provenance. “What would the world be like without its Fredas?”
    â€œA lot less complicated.” Lix was blushing, not inexplicably. This was not a good time for an argument.
    â€œWe still have to get her guy,” Mouetta said.
    â€œForget the guy!” He touched her wrist. He had the sense, though, not to put his hand on her leg and not to ask for what he wanted most, a kiss. Not heroism, but a kiss. A kiss inebriated by the rain. A wet, wet kiss. “Can’t we just forget the guy?”
    â€œJust drive,” she said. She never knew—or, at least, she preferred not to know—when Lix was being serious. Or when her irritation with her husband was unreasonable.
    The streets, of course, were busier than you’d expect on such a night, at such an hour. In addition to the men in uniform, causing trouble where they could, and the remaining groups of demonstators, there were civilians sheltering in the arcades and the bars, unable to get home or prevented by the road and sidewalk blocks and by the weather from reaching their cars. The streetcars and transit buses were not running: services suspended by order of the