Your memory is excellent, Lo, but I must trouble you to leave out the swear words. Anything else?
The Girl Scouts motto, said Lo rhapsodically, is also mine. I fill my life with worth-while deeds such as well, never mind what. My duty is to be useful. I am a friend to male animals. I obey orders. I am cheerful. That was another police car. I am thrifty and I am absolutely filthy in thought, word and deed.
Now I do hope thats all, you witty child.
Yep. Thats all. No wait a sec. We baked in a reflector oven. Isnt that terrific?
Well, thats better.
We washed zillions of dishes. Zillions you know is school-marms slang for many-many-many-many. Oh yes, last but not least, as Mother says Now let me see what was it? I know: We made shadowgraphs. Gee, what fun.
Cest bien tout?[121]
Cest. Except for one little thing, something I simply cant tell you without blushing all over.
Will you tell it me later?
If we sit in the dark and you let me whisper, I will. Do you sleep in your old room or in a heap with Mother?
Old room. Your mother may have to undergo a very serious operation, Lo.
Stop at that candy bar, will you, said Lo.
Sitting on a high stool, a band of sunlight crossing her bare brown forearm, Lolita was served an elaborate ice-cream concoction topped with synthetic syrup. It was erected and brought her by a pimply brute of a boy in a greasy bow-tie who eyed my fragile child in her thin cotton frock with carnal deliberation. My impatience to reach Briceland and The Enchanted Hunters was becoming more than I could endure. Fortunately she dispatched the stuff with her usual alacrity.
How much cash do you have? I asked.
Not a cent, she said sadly, lifting her eyebrows, showing me the empty inside of her money purse.
This is a matter that will be mended in due time, I rejoined archly. Are you coming?
Say, I wonder if they have a washroom.
You are not going there, I said firmly. It is sure to be a vile place. Do come on.
She was on the whole an obedient little girl and I kissed her in the neck when we got back into the car.
How much cash do you have? I asked.
Not a cent, she said sadly, lifting her eyebrows, showing me the empty inside of her money purse.
This is a matter that will be mended in due time, I rejoined archly. Are you coming?
Say, I wonder if they have a washroom.
You are not going there, I said firmly. It is sure to be a vile place. Do come on.
She was on the whole an obedient little girl and I kissed her in the neck when we got back into the car.
Dont do that, she said looking at me with unfeigned surprise. Dont drool on me. You dirty man.
She rubbed the spot against her raised shoulder.
Sorry, I murmured. Im rather fond of you, thats all.
We drove under a gloomy sky, up a winding road, then down again.
Well, Im also sort of fond of you, said Lolita in a delayed soft voice, with a sort of sigh, and sort of settled closer to me.
(Oh, my Lolita, we shall never get there!)
Dusk was beginning to saturate pretty little Briceland, its phony colonial architecture, curiosity shops and imported shade trees, when we drove through the weakly lighted streets in search of the Enchanted Hunters. The air, despite a steady drizzle beading it, was warm and green, and a queue of people, mainly children and old men, had already formed before the box office of a movie house, dripping with jewel-fires.
Oh, I want to see that picture. Lets go right after dinner. Oh, lets!
We might, chanted Humbert knowing perfectly well, the sly tumescent devil, that by nine, when his show began, she would be dead in his arms.
Easy! cried Lo, lurching forward, as an accursed truck in front of us, its backside carbuncles pulsating, stopped at a crossing.
If we did not get to the hotel soon, immediately, miraculously, in the very next block, I felt I would lose all control over the Haze jalopy with its ineffectual wipers and whimsical brakes; but the passers-by I applied to for directions were either strangers themselves or asked with a frown Enchanted what? as if I were a madman; or else they went into such complicated explanations, with geometrical gestures, geographical generalities and strictly local clues (then bear south after you hit the courthouse) that I could not help losing my way in the maze of their well-meaning gibberish. Lo, whose lovely prismatic entrails had already digested the sweetmeat, was looking forward to a big meal and had begun to fidget. As to me, although I had long become used to a kind of secondary fate (McFates inept secretary, so to speak) pettily interfering with the bosss generous magnificent plan to grind and grope through the avenues of Briceland was perhaps the most exasperating ordeal I had yet faced. In later months I could laugh at my inexperience when recalling the obstinate boyish way in which I had concentrated upon that particular inn with its fancy name; for all along our route countless motor courts[122] proclaimed their vacancy in neon lights, ready to accommodate salesmen, escaped convicts, impotents, family groups, as well as the most corrupt and vigorous couples. Ah, gentle drivers gliding through summers black nights, what frolics, what twists of lust, you might see from your impeccable highways if Kumfy Kabins[123] were suddenly drained of their pigments and became as transparent as boxes of glass!