The back of it bore a purple stamp, HECHO EN MEXICO / 20 × 20. Fred looked at it in hatred, assigning it primary blame for the violation performed on the painting. He was sitting with it in the subway, riding outbound from Charles Street station after an uneventful Monday. He’d put the puzzle out of his mind during the weekend. On the way in this morning he had confirmed what the Yellow Pages told him, that there was no place in Harvard Square to get a frame for anything other than a poster or photograph. Molly said he’d have better luck at Porter. So now, with the Procrustean object in his lap, he bounced noisily through Harvard station, swayed, and indulged the moaning complaints of the line of cars. The frame was joined in Mexico and shipped north, with a cavalier stick-something-in-this approach. And if it doesn’t fit, cut off a piece that will. The frame’s face was harder than plastic, and more gold and swirly than the most opulent music box ever imagined. It made Fred recall the ovoid chapel at Versailles—hadn’t Molly been talking of Versailles the other day?—which Fred always referred to in his mind as the Eye of the Needle.
