10

One day Genghis Cohen called, sounding excited, and asked her to come see something he’d just got in the mail, the U. S. Mail. It turned out to be an old American stamp, bearing the device of the muted post horn, belly-up badger and the motto:

WE AWAIT SILENT TRISTERO’S EMPIRE.

»So that’s what it stands for«, said Oedipa, »Where did you get this?«
»A friend«, Cohen said, leafing through a battered Scott catalogue, »in San Francisco.« As usual she did not go on to ask for any name or address.

all quotations from:
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 © 1965, 1966 by Thomas Pynchon