Page 934
Two paragraphs: Joelle van Dyne comes out of the St. Elizabeth's doors — leaving one of her Gately visits — and turns right for the short walk back up the hill to Ennet House, and someone takes her by the elbow. The point of view is hers; the whole scene is the grab, one sentence of warning, and her reply.
Terms, in order of appearance
- the grotesquely huge woman (p. 934) — hose bulging "with stubble," head "four times larger" than any woman's: you've seen this disguise worn this badly before, on the Arizona mountainside (pp. 88–95).
After you read: three things
1. Place the huge woman yourself. The scene never gives a name — just the stubbled hose and the enormous head, and an official manner ("she was sorry to be the one to tell her"). It reads like the Unspecified Services operative whose terrible female disguise the book has been describing since p. 88. If so, the U.S. government has just put its hand on the Entertainment's performer.
2. Both hunts have now reached her street. On p. 845 the A.F.R. reported every lead on "this veiled performer" negative — and pivoted to the auteur's family. Here the other side simply finds her, on a sidewalk, in daylight, between a hospital room and a halfway house. The "almost mind-boggling danger" line is the first time anyone has said out loud to Joelle what you've known since the Notkin deposition (pp. 787–795): that she is the living artifact two governments want.
3. The reply is the characterization. "It took rather a while for Joelle to look her up and down. 'This is supposed to be news?'" Four words from a woman who wears a veil in public, believed the film she made was harmless depressive conceits (so Notkin relayed, p. 789), and overdosed this month behind a locked bathroom door (pp. 234–240). Danger is not a new development in her life; the scene lets her say so.
Written only from this scene and earlier pages. Safe to read before you start.