Are Snakes Necessary? by Brian De Palma

Author:Brian De Palma
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan

CHAPTER 24

Rogers is in the bathroom, running the water. He’s finishing a shave. Slowly, over the running water, he registers the sound of Fanny sobbing quietly in the expensive sheets in the big bed in the guest room of the Washington townhouse. (Rogers would never have another woman in the bed he shares with Connie.)

“You promised. You promised.” She makes sad little sounds in between sobs.

Rogers walks out of the bathroom in a towel.

“She’s coming, Fanny. And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it,” says Rogers. Seeing him naked from the waist up, Fanny recalls that Rogers is known, to Senate staffers, as the Hunk of the Hill.

The Hunk of the Hill is a heap of swill, thinks Fanny, giving herself a momentary reprieve from her tears, her fury.

“When are you going to tell her about us,” she asks Rogers. He sits beside her on the bed.

The hunk, the hulk, he twists his bulk. And screws his mouth into something like a sneer.

“Oh, that’s a great idea, Fanny. A great, great idea. In an election year, why don’t I break it to my wife that it’s over, my wife of thirty years, my wife who is standing behind me while she’s dying? I can just break it to her on a romantic stroll along the Seine. Or maybe I can call a press conference and tell the whole fucking world.”

Fanny is taken aback. She rarely sees the business end of the senator’s moods. “But you said you loved me! And you promised you’d tell her.”

The senator reins in the rage. He’s a guy who’s made a career of concessions. “I will, Fanny, but not in Paris. I can’t. I proposed to her in Paris. Thirty years ago. On the top of the Eiffel Tower.”

“Oh that’s romantic.” Look! Fanny and Rogers are taking turns with mockery and put-downs, playing a zippy game of emotional ping-pong.

The senator is surprised to see Fanny ace a shot with withering sarcasm. He softens. “Wait until we get back. I promise I’ll tell her then. Now, be a good girl and get dressed.”

Fanny decides not to be a good girl. Instead she picks up a framed picture of the senator and his wife and throws it at him.

The senator ducks—fast reflexes—and it smashes against the wall behind him. Broken glass showers the floor.

“What do you think you’re doing? That’s one of Connie’s favorite pictures!”

He’s never been this angry with her before. But when Fanny gets out of bed and stands, naked, before him, his fury dissolves. The old hunger stirs in his loins. So what? She broke a picture.

“Oh, honey,” he says, all milk and honey. “I’m so sorry. She never goes to these things. But suddenly, out of the blue, this time she changed her mind. And after the conference, I have to get right back, this damn defense appropriation bill is up for another vote and—” He’s exhausted. But what he says next is true: “You know how much I need you…I just can’t do anything about it now.

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