Chapter I
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t was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted theRosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. I’mstupid about executions. The idea of being electrocuted makes mesick, and that’s all there was to read about in the papers—goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at thefusty, peanut-smelling mouth of every subway. It had nothing to dowith me, but I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like, beingburned alive all along your nerves. I thought it must be the worst thing in the world. New York was bad enough. By nine in the morning the fake,country-wet freshness that somehow seeped in overnightevaporated like the tail end of a sweet dream. Mirage-grey at thebottom of their granite canyons, the hot streets wavered in the sun,the car tops sizzled and glittered, and the dry, tindery dust blew intomy eyes and down my throat. I kept hearing about the Rosenbergs over the radio and at theoffice till I couldn't get them out of my mind. It was like the firsttime I saw a cadaver. For weeks afterwards, the cadaver’s head—orwhat there was left of it—floated up behind my eggs and baconat breakfast and behind the face of Buddy Willard, who wasresponsible for my seeing it in the first place, and pretty soon I feltas though I were carrying that cadaver’s head around with me on astring, like some black, noseless balloon stinking of vinegar. I knew something was wrong with me that summer, because allI could think about was the Rosenbergs and how stupid I'd been tobuy all those uncomfortable, expensive clothes, hanging limp as fishin my closet, and how all the little successes I'd totted up so happilyat college fizzled to nothing outside the slick marble and plate-glassfronts along Madison Avenue. I was supposed to be having the time of my life. I was supposed to be the envy of thousands of other college girls
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