By Then Esthappen And Rahel Had Learned

They Looked At Each Other. They Weren't Thinking Anymore. The Time For That Had Come And Gone. Smashed Smiles Lay Ahead Of Them. But That Would Be Later. Lay Ter.

But What Was There To Say? Only That There Were Tears. Only That Quietness And Emptiness Fitted Together Like Stacked Spoons. Only That There Was A Snuffling In The Hollows At The Base Of A Lovely Throat. Only That A Hard Honey-colored Shoulder Had A Semicircle Of Teethmarks On It. Only That They Held Each Other Close, Long After It Was Over. Only That What They Shared That Night Was Not Happiness, But Hideous Grief. Only That Once Again They Broke The Love Laws. That Lay Down Who Should Be Loved. And How. And How Much.

Novels Are Such Mysterious And Amorphous And Tender Things. And Here We Are With Our Crash Helmets On, With Concertina Wire All Around Us.

America Is Like Some Crazed, Bewildered, Rich Giant Bumbling Around In A Poor Area With His Pockets Stuffed With Money, And Lots Of Weapons - Just Throwing Stuff Around.

But Remember That If The Struggle Were To Resort To Violence, It Will Lose Vision, Beauty And Imagination. Most Dangerous Of All, It Will Marginalize And Eventually Victimize Women. And A Political Struggle That Does Not Have Women At The Heart Of It, Above It, Below It, And Within It Is No Struggle At All.