The dinner reservation is at the motor hotel at the edge of the little lake, one of the better places. Jack leads his guests inside. Their table looks out over the winterized swimming pool. It looks unprepossessing, now. Cold heaps of snow on an off-white cover.
He remembers stopping here in summer, watching the tourist beauties mermaiding in carefully carefree golden tone splendor. No anguished problems, there. Sufficient unto a photographic profile is the thought thereof. If any. What would it be like, to have enough, and be enough. Languor in self sufficient fullness. What justice, in this world.
"Well, Jack, you must have a hundred questions for Cheoki."
"I'm sure they would add up to that, Brother Andre. For instance," turning to his mother, "were there any other children? Do I have any brothers or sisters?"
"No. No, Jack, you were the only one. And if I had thought things would happen this way… You would have kept with me."
"But that would have made a lot of trouble for you, right? With my blond hair and green eyes, I would have looked very different from other children."
"It would have been hard but I could have done that. I was just too much afraid. Afraid of how you might look, later. You were very hairy when you were born, and I did not think that could change."
Jack looks questioningly at Brother Andre.
"That's right, Jack. You were so furry I was worried too what you might look like afterwards. But you lost the hair quite soon, within a couple of weeks. Your ears were a bit pointy at first, and your nose was very stubby. But after a few years you became more and more a standard Caucasian. You fit in here very well, don't you?"
Another party has just come in, two ladies and a man. They stare at Brother Andre, in his ko. They seem to decide he is a nut, and seat themselves at some distance.
"Physically there seems to be no great problem. I'm not so sure I have a very standard mind, or brain."
"What do you mean?"
"I seem to be quite different from everyone else. I think differently, I talk like no one else. I have problems that don't seem to bother other people."
"Well Jack, those things haven't been at all apparent to me. You seem to talk normally. Of course we haven't talked a lot. Am I missing something? Tell me more. What sort of problems?"
