"Do you want to meet him?" Schilling asked Mary Anne. "He's an experience, even if you don't care for his music."

Accompanied by Partridge, they made their way over. "What's his music like?" Mary Anne asked nervously.

"Very sentimental," Partridge declared, his beaked face rising above her as he steered the two of them between the groups of People. "Somewhat like a breakfast of maraschino cherries." Over the mutter of voices roared the titanic Mahler Symphony No. 1, amplified by the network of horns and speakers mounted throughout the large, well-furnished living room.

"What Leland means," Schilling said, "is that Hethel hasn't run out of melody, as his compatriots have."

"Ah," Partridge said. "How it takes me back to hear you talk, Joe. The good old days, when a little man used to run out at the beginning of each record and shout the name of the selection."

Sid Hethel was involved in conversation. Legs stuck out, cane resting against his fleshy groin, he was jabbing a ponderous finger at his circle of listeners. Hethel was a continent of tissue; from deep fat his eyes, black and sharp, peered out. It was the Hethel that Schilling remembered; he had, to accommodate his belly, unsnapped the two top buttons of his fly.

"... oh, no," Hethel was sputtering, wiping his mouth with a wad of white handkerchief, which he held in his hand, close to his chin. "You've got me wrong; I never said anything like that. Frankenstein's a good reviewer, a good music reviewer; the best in the area. But he's a chauvinist; if you're local talent, you're the cream of the crop; if you're Lilly Lombino from Wheeling, West Virginia, however, you can play the violin like Sarasate and Alf won't give you a tumble."

"I hear music and art reviewing don't keep him occupied," a member of Hethel's circle supplied. "He's going to kick out Koltanowski and do the chess column."

"Chess," Hethel said. "This is possible; with Alf Frankenstein it could be everything but cooking." He caught sight of Partridge, and a wicked gleam sparkled in his eyes. "Now, this binaural business. If only Mahler were alive today ..."

"With binaural," Partridge broke in gravely, "Mahler would have been able to listen to his music as it really sounded."

"You have a point," Hethel conceded, turning his attention to his host. "Of course, we must remember that to Mahler his music sounded good. Is there a knob or dial on your system that makes Mahler sound good? Because if there is-"

"Sid," Schilling said, feeling the potency of their years of friendship, "you realize you're drinking Leland's liquor and you're insulting him at the same time."

"If I wasn't drinking his liquor," Hethel said rapidly, "I wouldn't be insulting anybody. What brings you up here, Josh? Still trying to put Maurice Ravel under contract?" His vast pulpy hands, both of them, snaked out; Schilling accepted them and the two men gripped each other warmly. "It's good to see you," Hethel said, equally moved. "Still carry a box of contraceptives around in your briefcase?"

"What you call a briefcase," Schilling said, "is a large, leather, custom-appointed douche bag."

"Once," Hethel confided to his group, "I saw Josh Schilling sitting in a bar ..." His voice trailed off. "Good God, Schilling! I want to see the woman who goes with that douche bag!"

A little embarrassed, Schilling glanced at Mary Anne. How was she weathering the spectacle of Sid Hethel, the great contemporary composer?

Standing with her arms folded, she listened and did not seem amused nor offended. It was impossible to tell what she thought; her face was expressionless. In her black silk trousers she was remarkably slender ... there was balance in her straight back and elongated neck, and above her folded arms her breasts were very small, very sharp, quite visibly uptilted.

"Sid," Schilling said, bringing the girl forward, "I've opened a little new record shop down in Pacific Park. Remember, I always wanted to? One day when I pried up the lid of a shipping carton this elf popped out."

"My dear," Hethel said to her, the banter all at once gone from his voice, "step over here and tell me why you're working in that old man's record shop." He put his hand out and closed his fingers around hers. "What's your name?"

She told him, quietly, with the innate dignity Schilling had come to expect of her.

"Don't be elusive," Hethel said, smiling around at the circle of people. "Doesn't she look elusive to you?"

"What's that mean?" Mary Anne asked him.

Hethel scowled. "Mean?" He sounded baffled. "Well," he said, in a cross, overly loud voice, "it means-" He turned to Schilling. "Tell her what it means."

"He means you're a very pretty little girl," Edith Partridge said, appearing with a tray of drinks. "Who's run dry?"

"Here," Hethel muttered, groping at the tray for a glass. "Thanks, Edith." He focused his attention on her, letting go of Mary Anne's hand. "How're the kids?"

"How does he strike you?" Schilling asked the girl as he maneuvered her back through the ring of people, away from Hethel. "He didn't upset you, did he?"

"No," she said, shaking her head.

"He's had too much to drink, as usual. You find him repulsive?"

"No," she said. "He's like Nitz, isn't he? I mean, he's not like most people ... whatever it is about them. The hard part. The part I'm afraid of. I wasn't afraid of him."

"Sid Hethel is the gentlest man in the world." He was gratified by her reaction. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, thanks." Suddenly, with a rush of pessimism, she said; "They all can tell how old I am, can't they?"

"How old are you?"

"I'm young "

"That's good. Think of yourself and then think of us-Partridge and Hethel and Schilling, three old dodderers, reminiscing about the days of the cylinder record."

"I wish I could talk about that," Mary Anne said fervently. "What have I got to say? All I can do is tell people my name . . isn't that wonderful?"

"It's good enough for me," he said, and meant it. "Do you know who Milhaud is?"

"Yes," he admitted.

She wandered away from him and, after some hesitation, he followed. Now she had halted at the edge of a group of audio engineers and was listening to their conversation. Her face was drawn up in the troubled frown he was beginning to know.

"Mary Anne," he said, "they're comparing the roll-off of the new Bogen and Fisher amplifiers. What do you care about that?"

"I don't even understand what it is!"

"It's sound. And sometimes I wonder if they understand."

He led her over to a window seat in the deserted corner of the room and sat her down. She held onto her glass---Edith Partridge had taken her purse-and stared at the floor.

"Cheer up," he said. "What's that awful racket?"

He listened. All he could hear was the noise of human voices; and, of course, the torrent of Mahler's symphonic texture. "That must be it. There's a speaker horn mounted near here." He felt around with his hands until he located a grille set in the wall be hind a print. "See? It's emerging from that."

"Does it have a name?"

"Yes, it's the Mahler First Symphony."

Mary Anne brooded. "You even know the name. Would you teach me that?"

"Of course." He felt sad and touched.

"Because," Mary Anne went on earnestly, "I want to talk to that man and I can't. That fat man." She shook her head. "I guess

I'm tired ... all those people coming in and out of the store today.

What time is it?"

It was only nine-thirty. "Want to leave?" he asked. "No, that wouldn't be right."

"It's up to you," he said, meaning it. "Where would we go? Back?"

"If you want."

"I don't want."

"Well," he said softly, "then we won't. We could go to a bar; we could go get something to eat; we could simply walk around San Francisco. We could do any number of things."