of large balasses." The favorites of James I. wore ear-rings of emeralds set in gold filigrane. Edward II. gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of red-gold armor studded with jacinths, and a collar of gold roses set with turquoise-stones, and a skull-cap parsem with pearls. Henry II. wore jewelled gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a hawk-glove set with twelve rubies and fifty-two great pearls. The ducal hat of Charles the Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy of his race, was studded with sapphires and hung with pear- shaped pearls. How exquisite life had once been! How gorgeous in its pomp and decoration! Even to read of the luxury of the dead was wonderful. Then he turned his attention to embroideries, and to the tapestries that performed the office of frescos in the chill rooms of the Northern nations of Europe. As he investigated the subject,--and he always had an extraordinary faculty of becoming absolutely absorbed for the moment in whatever he took up,--he was almost saddened by the reflection of the ruin that time brought on beautiful and wonderful things. He, at any rate, had escaped that. Summer followed summer, and the yellow jonquils bloomed and died many times, and nights of horror repeated the story of their shame, but he was unchanged. No winter marred his face or stained his flower-like bloom. How different it was with material things! Where had they gone to? Where was the great crocus-colored robe, on which the gods fought against the giants, that had been worked for Athena? Where the huge velarium that Nero had stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, on which were represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a chariot drawn by [72] white gilt-reined steeds? He longed to see the curious table-napkins wrought for Elagabalus, on which were displayed all the dainties and viands that could be wanted for a feast; the mortuary cloth of King Chilperic, with its three hundred golden bees; the fantastic robes that excited the indignation of the Bishop of Pontus, and were figured with "lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests, rocks, hunters,--all, in fact, that a painter can copy from nature;" and the coat that Charles of Orleans once wore, on the sleeves of which were embroidered the verses of a song beginning "Madame, je suis tout joyeux," the musical accompaniment of the words being wrought in gold thread, and each note, a square shape in those days, formed with four pearls. He read of the room that was prepared at the palace at Rheims for the use of Queen Joan of Burgundy, and was decorated with "thirteen hundred and twenty-one parrots, made in broidery, and blazoned with the king's arms, and five hundred and sixty-one butterflies, whose wings were similarly ornamented with the arms of the queen, the whole worked in gold." Catherine de Mdicis had a mourning-bed made for her of black velvet powdered with crescents and suns. Its curtains were of damask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured upon a gold and silver ground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of


feel for the crowd when there were so many of them, but most were focused enough on the match that it should be easy to spot someone slipping off for a whispered conversation. Gabe slumped a few feet away from her and Bastian, facing the fight, but with his one blue eye scanning back and forth through his mask. The boxer with the bruised lip feinted to the side. The blond one stumbled, a punch overthrown. “There,” Bastian said. He didn’t point, but angled his chin toward the shadows on the far edge of the ring, a place between streetlights where the dark was deepest. Three figures huddled, angled away from the match. The one whose face Lore could see looked like he was listening intently to whatever was being said. The figure speaking had their back turned. Bastian and Gabe exchanged a look. Gabe nodded, then started moving toward the group, pushing through the crowd like a shark through a school of fish. “Come on.” Bastian took Lore’s arm and tugged her after him. “I don’t think our pet monk will need any backup, but we should stick close, just in case.” A roar went up from the ring. When Lore looked back, the blond boxer was on the ground. The group in the shadows broke apart before Gabe could reach them, the figure who’d been speaking fading into the crowd without Lore getting a good look at them. Gabe approached one of the men who’d been listening, struck up a casual conversation. Bastian and Lore stopped a few feet away; from what she could hear, it sounded like Gabe was talking about sailing weather. “Bleeding God,” she muttered, and Bastian snorted. A few more inane words about northwesterly winds, and Gabe nodded in the direction of the now-disappeared speaker. “You all wouldn’t know about any job opportunities opening up around here, would you? I’m looking to make some extra coin.” A pause. “Something that could be done in one night would be ideal.” “Laying it on a bit thick,” Bastian whispered. Lore dug her elbow into his ribs. The man Gabe spoke to—very small and slight, if it weren’t for the thick stubble on his jaw, Lore would think his voice still hadn’t cracked—glanced at his companion, then rubbed at his neck. A constellation of bruises bloomed there, deep purple and new. “I might,” he said slowly. “But the details aren’t mine to share.” Gabe’s jaw tightened, and the slight man stepped back, eyes widening in brief alarm. Lore didn’t blame him. Gabe didn’t look like the kind of person you’d want to anger. “How could one find someone willing to impart details?” Gabe asked. The man’s companion—larger than he, but still young looking—let out a harsh laugh. “Lose,” he said, cutting a hand toward the ring. Lore looked back. The blond fighter was up again, but blood trickled steadily from a cut across her forehead, dripping into her eyes. “Lose?” Gabe’s confusion drew his brows together, wrinkled the black domino mask. “Lose a fight,” the slight man mumbled, rubbing


our age, then you must be careful,” she said, her voice strained, thinking of how they both had a lousy record when it came to human hearts. “We’re not children to be playing house.” He huffed, bruised by her refusal. He hadn’t expected her to swoon, but this felt like a military siege; he’d have to fight tooth and nail for her. But it only emboldened him, made him realize he’d have to dig deep, and he wouldn’t be able to do things in halves. “Call me immature then, because it sounds reasonable to me,” he said, spreading his arms. “It’s twenty years of foreplay, Momo. Do you want to wait a few more decades until I can’t masticate my own food? ’Cause I’ll love you until then and feed you pureed prunes, but it would be a shame to start living together at eighty-nine and die of a heart attack the first time we have sex.” “That is the most disgusting declaration I’ve ever heard,” she said flatly, and then she couldn’t help it, she laughed. Tristán laughed, too, and now he felt stupid, but he supposed that was fine. It was okay to be stupid when it came to Montserrat. “It is, isn’t it?” he said. They hugged. She clung tightly to him, tighter than she’d ever held him. His arms wrapped around her, chasing shadows away. “What do you want me to say? I recite dialogue, I can’t write it,” he whispered, his voice soft against her ear. “You’re a silly tomato,” she blurted, not even knowing what she said. She was forgetting the meaning of words and how to speak them. “A silly tomato!” She could feel his smile, but her face was buried against his chest, and he was running a hand through her hair. She couldn’t bear to look at him. “You can’t drive my car, I won’t let you. I won’t do your laundry, I won’t sew your buttons, and if you don’t pick up after yourself, I’ll toss you out,” she said, whip-quick. “I’ll cook. Believe me, we’ll live longer,” he said, his fingers sliding down her cheek, tipping up her chin. “You’re an asshole,” she said. “You going to kiss me or what?” he asked, voice husky, and was rewarded with the tremor of her lashes. “At least I’m not the only nervous one,” he said, savoring the startled look on her face as she stared up at him. She wanted to punch him. “You probably kiss like in the movies and I’ll die of embarrassment.” “Well, fuck me, I kiss well, yes. That’s a plus. Now who’s the silly tomato?” he asked, stepping back and arching an eyebrow at her. “Wanna make out in your car tonight?” She did punch him on the arm then, not hard, but to make sure he didn’t get too cocky. Across the avenue, a vendor of tamales was pushing a cart, his strident whistle calling forth customers. A boy carrying a big boom box was walking on the other side of the street, spewing loud notes


are. You are such a capable young woman. I’m so very proud of you. I wanted to come here and tell you that, even if it’s a little late in the day.’ ‘It’s never too late,’ came Madame Bowden’s voice from behind me. She had a knack for just appearing in the middle of other people’s conversations. ‘Won’t you come inside?’ It felt like a novelty having tea with my mother in the back kitchen of this grand old house. Madame Bowden suggested it as it was roomier than my flat and left us to it, thankfully. I thought she would poke her nose in, but she did have some sense of tact when it suited her. I talked cheerfully about my course in Trinity, the friends I’d made, my new-found interest in literature. ‘You’ve made a lovely life for yourself here,’ she said, placing her hand on mine. ‘I’m happy, Mom. Even living here with Madame Bowden – it’s not what I would have envisioned for myself as a young woman, but it kind of works. I think we’re good for each other.’ ‘She sounds like a guardian angel.’ I wasn’t sure if that’s how I’d describe her. I poured some more tea from the pot. All my years at home, my father and my brothers took up all of the oxygen, but here, it was like we could finally breathe deeply. It’s only in something’s absence that you realise how much space it takes up. ‘There’s something I want to tell you, Martha.’ ‘You’re leaving Dad?’ She gave me a double take. ‘I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it, but no. Your father is … well, he’s not perfect. But he’s dependable, and even though sometimes I wish I could change so many things about him, he has given me a home where I feel safe.’ I had never heard her speak about my father that way. Despite the fact that I still had a different opinion, I understood and respected hers. ‘What is it then?’ ‘It’s not something serious … what I mean is, it won’t change anything, for you at least. But it might help you to understand the past. My past.’ She turned the teacup on the saucer, slowly choosing her words. It was strange for both of us to hear her voice like this, when we’d always communicated in silence. ‘After Shane, I began to realise that the past isn’t something we leave behind. It is living with us, every day. It isn’t simply DNA that we inherit. I think there are other things passed down through the generations. Memories, perhaps.’ She was speaking from a place of deep pain, I could see that. I moved my chair closer to hers. The atmosphere in the kitchen took on an air of intense stillness, as though it too was waiting for her story. ‘My mother was adopted as a baby.’ Of all of the things she could have said, I never would have anticipated that. Our family history was something I had seen


a traveller's life is one that includes much pain amidst its enjoyments. His feelings are forever on the stretch; and when he begins to sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in pleasure for something new, which again engages his attention, and which also he forsakes for other novelties. We had scarcely visited the various lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland and conceived an affection for some of the inhabitants when the period of our appointment with our Scotch friend approached, and we left them to travel on. For my own part I was not sorry. I had now neglected my promise for some time, and I feared the effects of the daemon's disappointment. He might remain in Switzerland and wreak his vengeance on my relatives. This idea pursued me and tormented me at every moment from which I might otherwise have snatched repose and peace. I waited for my letters with feverish impatience; if they were delayed I was miserable and overcome by a thousand fears; and when they arrived and I saw the superscription of Elizabeth or my father, I hardly dared to read and ascertain my fate. Sometimes I thought that the fiend followed me and might expedite my remissness by murdering my companion. When these thoughts possessed me, I would not quit Henry for a moment, but followed him as his shadow, to protect him from the fancied rage of his destroyer. I felt as if I had committed some great crime, the consciousness of which haunted me. I was guiltless, but I had indeed drawn down a horrible curse upon my head, as mortal as that of crime. I visited Edinburgh with languid eyes and mind; and yet that city might have interested the most unfortunate being. Clerval did not like it so well as Oxford, for the antiquity of the latter city was more pleasing to him. But the beauty and regularity of the new town of Edinburgh, its romantic castle and its environs, the most delightful in the world, Arthur's Seat, St. Bernard's Well, and the Pentland Hills compensated him for the change and filled him with cheerfulness and admiration. But I was impatient to arrive at the termination of my journey. We left Edinburgh in a week, passing through Coupar, St. Andrew's, and along the banks of the Tay, to Perth, where our friend expected us. But I was in no mood to laugh and talk with strangers or enter into their feelings or plans with the good humour expected from a guest; and accordingly I told Clerval that I wished to make the tour of Scotland alone. "Do you," said I, "enjoy yourself, and let this be our rendezvous. I may be absent a month or two; but do not interfere with my motions, I entreat you; leave me to peace and solitude for a short time; and when I return, I hope it will be with a lighter heart, more congenial to your own temper. Henry wished to dissuade me, but seeing me bent on this


He stops. I shift in his lap, and he winces. Oh. I flush. “Sorry,” I mutter. He rolls his eyes, then leans back suddenly, taking me with him, so that we’re both lying on the bed, me in his arms. My bra is uncomfortable, and I adjust it. “Need a hand?” he asks quietly. I shake my head. I don’t want him to touch my breasts. He shifts so he’s looking down at me, and tentatively raising his hand, he strokes his fingers gently down my face. Tears pool in my eyes again. How can he be so callous one minute and so tender the next? “Please don’t cry,” he whispers. I’m dazed and confused by this man. My anger has deserted me in my hour of need . . . I feel numb. I want to curl up in a ball and withdraw. I blink, trying to hold back my tears as I gaze into his harrowed eyes. I take a shuddering breath, my eyes not leaving his. What am I going to do with this controlling man? Learn to be controlled? I don’t think so . . . “I never what?” I ask “Do as you’re told. You changed your mind; you didn’t tell me where you were. Ana, I was in New York, powerless and livid. If I’d been in Seattle I’d have brought you home.” “So you are punishing me?” He swallows, then closes his eyes. He doesn’t have to answer, and I know that punishing me was his exact intention. “You have to stop doing this,” I murmur. His brow furrows. “For a start, you only end up feeling shittier about yourself.” He snorts. “That’s true,” he mutters. “I don’t like to see you like this.” “And I don’t like feeling like this. You said on the Fair Lady that you hadn’t married a submissive.” “I know. I know.” His voice is soft and raw. 242/551 “Well stop treating me like one. I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I won’t be so selfish again. I know you worry about me.” He gazes at me, scrutinizing me closely, his eyes bleak and anxious. “Okay. Good,” he says eventually. He leans down, but pauses before his lips touch mine, silently asking if it’s allowed. I raise my face to his, and he kisses me tenderly. “Your lips are always so soft when you’ve been crying,” he murmurs. “I never promised to obey you, Christian,” I whisper. “I know.” “Deal with it, please. For both our sakes. And I will try and be more consid- erate of your . . . controlling tendencies.” He looks lost and vulnerable, completely at sea. “I’ll try,” he murmurs, his voice burning with sincerity. I sigh, a long shuddering sigh. “Please do. Besides, if I had been here . . .” “I know,” he says and blanches. Lying back, he puts his free arm over his face. I curl around him and lay my head on his chest. We both lie silent for a few moments. His hand moves to the end of my


to exit. I felt awash in shame, like the specter of suicidal ideation was some selfish luxury I’d been contemplating. An easy way out. We talked about it for hours. We talked about everything—social media harassment, breakups, anxiety and depression, the country, and what types of bad takeout I should order to fashion a grungier safe-house aesthetic. Hannah took the role of accidental counselor seriously. But she also kept it light. When I confessed that I felt like I was drinking too much and might have an addiction problem, she didn’t miss a beat. “Miles, you know there’s a really good Alcoholics Anonymous joke somewhere in there.” I laughed. “That’s a big deal for me to say that out loud,” I told her. “So I’m gonna need some kind of confession from you in exchange.” “I’ve kept something to myself for a long time,” she replied, looking into my eyes with the utmost somberness. “I have always, always wanted to be a redhead.” Hannah met Dennis and told him to get me out of the house more. One of the days, she proposed a short hike on Teddy Roosevelt Island to get fresh air, knowing I was anxious about the continued ambiguity surrounding the election. (Arizona had been called for Biden; now all eyes were on Pennsylvania.) The three of us trudged through the muddy paths realizing we’d all worn the wrong shoes. I was partway out of my funk by the time she came over on Saturday morning. Hannah smoked up the kitchen with pancakes and hash browns and bacon, while I did things I’d been putting off. I looked up how to file for unemployment, and I searched for my own apartment. Frankly, I didn’t want to be holed up in a place that wasn’t mine, and Hannah insisted a scenery change was needed. While I was scrolling through listings trying to find something affordable, she let out a gasp. “Oh my god!” Hannah was looking at her phone in shock. “What?” I looked up. She covered her mouth, and I worried someone had been shot. “It’s over,” she said, reading to me from her phone. “Pennsylvania. ‘NBC says… Biden is the projected winner.’ We did it, Miles. You guys did it! It’s over!” Hearing those words got me. I hadn’t cried in years, but for the second time in days, tears ran down my cheeks as Hannah walked over and hugged me at the dining room table. I covered my face as she sneaked a picture of me. You could hear the news alert spreading outside. Within minutes, people cheered on the sidewalks below and drivers honked, again and again. An overwhelming sense of relief filled the sunny apartment. “We have to go celebrate. Tell Dennis we’re going down to the National Mall,” she declared. I called him. “No, no, no, no,” Dennis said. “Sir, there could be dangerous people who show up and want to ruin the party.” “Dennis, we’re doing it,” I told him, “whether you come with us or not.” On the ride over a few


may never know all the reasons why he didn’t feel more open to receiving a donated kidney, whether from a family member or from a stranger. Though I’ve often wished that we could have come up with an argument that would have changed his mind, my mother believed nothing either of us could say would have swayed him. She said that he remembered his mother’s agony after organ rejection, and in the end he believed that neither dialysis nor a transplant would give him a long life. The dialysis did its job, as it had for his mother, first saving and then extending his life. But the ongoing treatments left him drained and far more vulnerable to other illnesses and infections. His immune system was compromised; he was constantly getting sick. We knew that he wasn’t thriving, nor was he improving. He was enduring. * * * He had been on dialysis for four and a half years when he began experiencing balance problems, head and neck pain, difficulty walking. After two painful falls and a high fever, he finally made an appointment with his doctor. An MRI showed an aggressive case of osteomyelitis, a bone infection, in his vertebrae, which was putting pressure on his neck and attacking his spinal cord. The doctor wasn’t certain where it had come from; while the area around his dialysis port was vulnerable to infection, it appeared to be clear. His best guess was that the bacterial attack might have started in the teeth and gums, where my father was prone to abscesses and infections. Both diabetes and dialysis increased his risk of dental problems, and he had rarely had access to comprehensive dental coverage. My father was referred to a neurosurgeon, who performed surgery within hours. “If you wait even one more day, you’re risking paralysis or spinal stroke,” he told my parents. He removed a badly inflamed spinal disk and several damaged vertebrae, putting in plates and screws where necessary. The operation was successful, but when Dad woke up in the recovery area, he kept clearing his throat, insisting he “could feel something down there.” Soon his trachea was so swollen from the infection and the trauma of the operation that he needed to be intubated and moved to the ICU. All of this happened so quickly that my mother had no time to update me. By the time she could call, the swelling had gone down, and Dad was off the ventilator and breathing on his own again. She agreed that we should try to come out and visit soon, but advised us to wait until he came home from the hospital. “There’d be nothing for you to do right now,” she said, sounding impossibly weary. When I was able to talk to Dad, I spent most of the call in tears, apologizing for not being closer. It was still hard for him to speak. He tried to tell me that it was all right, he was getting the care he needed, and he knew that I was praying for him and


week that I started suffering flashbacks. Andrew’s face would pop up in my mind during lectures: vivid, up close, his chin prickly and his breath sour with cinnamon Burnett’s. I’d find myself unable to breathe, unable to move without feeling waves of vertigo. My imagination would spiral out, imagining the worst possible scenarios. Could I be pregnant? Did I have HIV? HPV? Herpes? AIDS? Would my uterus rot out inside me? Should I see campus health? If I saw campus health, would it cost me hundreds of dollars I didn’t have? Had my mom waived the student insurance plan? I couldn’t remember. Was I going to die because of a stupid mistake I’d made, something I hadn’t even been awake for? Andrew didn’t text me until two in the morning the following Saturday: Hey, u up? I saw it when I got up to pee and deleted it, hoping to spare my waking self the reminder of his existence. But I couldn’t get his face, his smell, his touch out of my mind. I started taking incredibly long showers, three or four times a day. I kept having nightmares in which I was pinned beneath him, trapped under his scratchy chin, unable to move or scream. Michelle would wake me up, shaking my shoulders gently, asking me apologetically and diplomatically if I had earplugs she could borrow, because she had discussion section at eight in the morning and I was interrupting her REM cycles. I found myself weeping randomly in the afternoons, overwhelmed with self-loathing. I even considered going to a student Bible study group, though I’d stopped going to church after Dad since the pastor told me he was going to hell as he’d never been baptized, just because I wanted something that could help me make sense of my very retrograde but still strong conviction that I was irreversibly tainted, used, and dirty. “Hey, Juniper?” Athena stopped me one afternoon on my way back from the dining hall. Back then, Athena was the only one who used my full name, which was a habit she would sustain through adulthood, calling Tashas “Natasha” and Bills “William” as if this insistence on formality would elevate everyone in the conversation. (It did.) She touched my arm. Her fingers were smooth and cool. “Are you okay?” And maybe it was because I’d been holding it all in for so long, or because she was the first person at Yale who’d really looked at me and noticed that something wasn’t right, but I burst immediately into loud, ugly tears. “Come on,” she said, rubbing gentle circles on my back. “Let’s go to my room.” Athena held my hand while I recounted the whole thing through hiccupping sobs. She talked me through my options, made me look through the campus resources list, and helped me decide if I wanted to seek counseling (yes) or report Andrew to the campus police to try and press charges (no). She walked with me to my first appointment with Dr. Gaily, where I got a diagnosis for my anxiety, unpacked


water of the wake, and further on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long howl thrills me through! Peace! ye revellers, and set the watch! Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge, --as wild, untutored things are forced to feed --Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences! .. <p 168 > .. < chapter xxxix 2 FIRST NIGHT-WATCH FORE-TOP > ( Stubb solus, and mending a brace.) Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat! --I've been thinking over it ever since, and that ha, ha's the final consequence. Why so? Because a laugh's the wisest, easiest answer to all that's queer; and come what will, one comfort's always left -- that unfailing comfort is, it's all predestinated. I heard not all his talk with Starbuck; but to my poor eye Starbuck then looked something as I the other evening felt. Be sure the old Mogul has fixed him, too. I twigged it, knew it; had had the gift, might readily have prophesied it --for when I clapped my eye upon his skull I saw it. Well, Stubb, wise Stubb --that's my title --well, Stubb, what of it, Stubb? Here's a carcase. I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra, skirra! What's my juicy little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes out? --Giving a party to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say, gay as a frigate's pennant, and so am I--fa, la! lirra, skirra! Oh-- We'll drink to-night with hearts as light, To love, as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim, on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting. a brave stave that --who calls? mr. starbuck? Aye, aye, sir -- ( Aside) he's my superior, he has his too, if I'm not mistaken. -- Aye, aye, sir, just through with this job --coming. .. <p 169 > .. < chapter xl 2 MIDNIGHT, FORECASTLE HARPOONERS AND SAILORS > ( Foresail rises and discovers the watch standing, lounging, leaning, and lying in various attitudes, all singing in chorus.) Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies! Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain! Our captain's commanded. -- 1st Nantucket Sailor Oh, boys, don't be sentimental; it's bad for the digestion! Take a tonic, follow me! ( Sings, and all follow.) Our captain stood upon the deck, A spy-glass in his hand, A viewing of those gallant whales That blew at every strand. Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys, And by your braces stand, And we'll have one of those fine whales, Hand, boys, over hand! So, be cheery, my lads!


You might as well have held up a sign that said ‘murder suspect right this way.’ ” Montserrat hated it when Tristán slipped into using endearments during arguments. It had been common in his household growing up, but there was nothing that could fuel her rage more than his passive-aggressive dropping of a sweet word. Especially “my love.” She shoved him, and he collided with the shuttered front of a shop, his back making a loud thud when it hit the steel. “Excuse me for panicking. Next time I stumble onto a dead man I’ll wear a suit!” Montserrat’s hands were pressed against his chest, and she glared up at him before attempting to slide away, but he caught her wrist and held her in place. “Don’t you remember what happened with that Molinet kid a few months back? They found the maid dead in his house, and they said he’d done it because he was a Satanist. And the proof of his Satanism was that he had a Stephen King collection, a copy of Süskind’s Perfume, and a few heavy metal records in his room. “Cops always try to pin it on an easy target. I should know,” he added, recalling the fuss after Karina passed away. “Orgy in Cuernavaca ends in deadly crash,” that’s what the newspapers said, and he had never been able to shake off that aura of crime and debauchery from himself. Montserrat gave him the tiniest nod, looking away from his face. “I was scared, okay? That’s why I’m pissed off. I needed you that night.” “I know,” he muttered. The tension between them was dissipating. He hated it when they quarreled. It left him a mess. He never knew how to properly apologize. “Why were you in Abel’s apartment?” he asked. “Abel said he was going to die. He had a premonition. Everything seemed fine and then he called me in a panic.” “Did you tell the police this?” “No. I may be dumb, but I’m not that stupid.” He sighed and let go of Montserrat’s hand. The haberdashery closed its shutters with a loud clang at the same moment the lamps went on. “Tell me what happened.” She did, starting with their meeting at the Zona Rosa, then ending by recounting her conversation with the cops and the questions they had peppered her with. Tristán reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette, toying with it before pressing the tip against the lighter’s flame and giving her a weary look. “There’s something else, isn’t there?” “When I was in Abel’s room there was a silence.” “You mean a noise?” “No, a silence. Or rather, it was a presence that seemed to muffle the room. It was unnatural; I have never experienced anything like it. I don’t think Abel lied when he said there are such a thing as curses and spells. We need to get back into Abel’s apartment. I can pick the lock, it won’t be a problem.” “It would be a big problem if someone saw us doing that.” That, plus


and Arrow pilots better than going up against three Ziu armadas?” The response was unanimous. “Yes!” I said, “Helm, swing us around and get us moving. I guess we’re going to jump.” “Shit! Incoming! Captain, smart missiles inbound,” Akari said, tension in her voice. “God, they’re fast.” She looked to Grimes. “Get us moving! Now!” Chapter 8 It was rare to see Coogong sitting at a console on the bridge, but here he was; even with his seat raised as high as it would go, the Thine scientist was on his knees, leaning over the console’s control board. Grimes had relinquished all Helm control to Coogong. All of their fates were in the small alien’s twig-like hands. The halo display was our only reference for what was happening—our three-conjoined-spacecraft monstrosity tearing through local space at incredible speeds, coming way too close to various-sized chunks of the destroyed world. For the umpteenth time I had to remind myself to trust Coogong, to have faith … And if I can’t? Well, we’d be screwed either way, with the Ziu fast on our heels. Coogong said, “Ship’s AI is manufacturing our wormhole in three, two, one!” And there it was, several thousand kilometers in front of us. The spatial aberration’s yawning open mouth just now forming. Stabilizing. Akari directed my attention to a secondary feed, one that showed our relative position to that of the quickly advancing Ziu missiles. I said, “Coogong, why are we slowing?” Coming up through the deck plates, I’d actually felt our drive vibrations reduce. Seeing the feed only confirmed my assumptions. “Captain, we must duplicate the Adams’ speed exactly as when we approached that wormhole prior to arriving here.” He glanced at the feed, and I saw apprehension on his worm-like face. He said, “Those incoming missiles are out of my control. Do not attempt to fire on them. Any fluctuation, even by a fraction of our rate of speed could be … well, catastrophic.” I raised my palms. “This is your show, Coogong.” Overhead, Sir Calvin’s British voice began a countdown. “Ten … nine … eight …” I knew the plan was to jump the three ships at a precise moment, right into the mouth of that quickly approaching wormhole, just as Adams had done previously. But my confidence in the whole process was giving me pause. This was little more than an unproven experiment—an experiment where there would be no redos, no second chances. Was I really willing to risk the lives of these crew members all on Coogong’s best-guess hunch? “Five … four … three …” The Ziu missiles were almost upon us. This was happening. “Two … one …” Adams, Portent, and Boundless Wrath jumped. I closed my eyes. I held my breath. The ship shook violently, and I was thrown to the deck; I heard a series of loud clangs and bangs. Someone yelped. Someone else cursed. The overhead crystal chandeliers swung and musically clinked like the highest piano notes. Realizing I’d bonked my head, I brought fingertips to my forehead; they came away bloody.


the brass pole, to their dismay slid them down into darkness, into the blast and cough and suction of the gaseous dragon roaring to life! "Hey !" They rounded a corner in thunder and siren, with concussion of tyres, with scream of rubber, with a shift of kerosene bulk in the glittery brass tank, like the food in the stomach of a giant; with Montag's fingers jolting off the silver rail, swinging into cold space, with the wind tearing his hair back from his head, with the wind whistling in his teeth, and him all the while thinking of the women, the chaff women in his parlour tonight, with the kernels blown out from under them by a neon wind, and his silly damned reading of a book to them. How like trying to put out fires with water-pistols, how senseless and insane. One rage turned in for another. One anger displacing another. When would he stop being entirely mad and be quiet, be very quiet indeed? "Here we go!" Montag looked up. Beatty never drove, but he was driving tonight, slamming the Salamander around corners, leaning forward high on the driver's throne, his massive black slicker flapping out behind so that he seemed a great black bat flying above the engine, over the brass numbers, taking the full wind. "Here we go to keep the world happy, Montag !" Beatty's pink, phosphorescent cheeks glimmered in the high darkness, and he was smiling furiously. "Here we are!" The Salamander boomed to a halt, throwing men off in slips and clumsy hops. Montag stood fixing his raw eyes to the cold bright rail under his clenched fingers. I can't do it, he thought. How can I go at this new assignment, how can I go on burning things? I can't go in this place. Beatty, smelling of the wind through which he had rushed, was at Montag's elbow. "All right, Montag?" The men ran like cripples in their clumsy boots, as quietly as spiders. At last Montag raised his eyes and turned. Beatty was watching his face. "Something the matter, Montag?" "Why," said Montag slowly, "we've stopped in front of my house." PART III BURNING BRIGHT LIGHTS flicked on and house-doors opened all down the street, to watch the carnival set up. Montag and Beatty stared, one with dry satisfaction, the other with disbelief, at the house before them, this main ring in which torches would be juggled and fire eaten. "Well," said Beatty, "now you did it. Old Montag wanted to fly near the sun and now that he's burnt his damn wings, he wonders why. Didn't I hint enough when I sent the Hound around your place?" Montag's face was entirely numb and featureless; he felt his head turn like a stone carving to the dark place next door, set in its bright borders of flowers. Beatty snorted. "Oh, no! You weren't fooled by that little idiot's routine, now, were you? Flowers, butterflies, leaves, sunsets, oh, hell! It's all in her file. I'll be damned. I've hit the bullseye. Look at


window; it was indeed the carriage, and he returned to his seat without speaking. The moment was now come when they must part. St. Aubert told Valancourt, that he hoped he would never pass La Vallee without favouring him with a visit; and Valancourt, eagerly thanking him, assured him that he never would; as he said which he looked timidly at Emily, who tried to smile away the seriousness of her spirits. They passed a few minutes in interesting conversation, and St. Aubert then led the way to the carriage, Emily and Valancourt following in silence. The latter lingered at the door several minutes after they were seated, and none of the party seemed to have courage enough to say--Farewell. At length, St. Aubert pronounced the melancholy word, which Emily passed to Valancourt, who returned it, with a dejected smile, and the carriage drove on. The travellers remained, for some time, in a state of tranquil pensiveness, which is not unpleasing. St. Aubert interrupted it by observing, 'This is a very promising young man; it is many years since I have been so much pleased with any person, on so short an acquaintance. He brings back to my memory the days of my youth, when every scene was new and delightful!' St. Aubert sighed, and sunk again into a reverie; and, as Emily looked back upon the road they had passed, Valancourt was seen, at the door of the little inn, following them with his eyes. Her perceived her, and waved his hand; and she returned the adieu, till the winding road shut her from his sight. 'I remember when I was about his age,' resumed St. Aubert, 'and I thought, and felt exactly as he does. The world was opening upon me then, now--it is closing.' 'My dear sir, do not think so gloomily,' said Emily in a trembling voice, 'I hope you have many, many years to live--for your own sake-- for MY sake.' 'Ah, my Emily!' replied St. Aubert, 'for thy sake! Well- I hope it is so.' He wiped away a tear, that was stealing down his cheek, threw a smile upon his countenance, and said in a cheering voice, 'there is something in the ardour and ingenuousness of youth, which is particularly pleasing to the contemplation of an old man, if his feelings have not been entirely corroded by the world. It is cheering and reviving, like the view of spring to a sick person; his mind catches somewhat of the spirit of the season, and his eyes are lighted up with a transient sunshine. Valancourt is this spring to me.' Emily, who pressed her father's hand affectionately, had never before listened with so much pleasure to the praises he bestowed; no, not even when he had bestowed them on herself. They travelled on, among vineyards, woods, and pastures, delighted with the romantic beauty of the landscape, which was bounded, on one side, by the grandeur of the Pyrenees, and, on the other, by the ocean; and, soon after noon, they reached the town of Colioure, situated


of the long window overlooking the square and he gestured for me to sit. ‘I will make us some tea.’ He arrived back at the table with a silver tray bearing an antique silver teapot with ornate patterns and little glasses printed with gold writing, which looked to be Arabic. However, it was the scent of sweet mint that surprised me the most. ‘Have you ever tasted Moroccan tea?’ he asked. I shook my head and watched as he lifted the lid of the teapot and stirred a copious amount of thick leaves into the hot water. Then he set about the ritual of pouring the tea into the glasses from an impossible height. My eyes widened as he held the teapot further and further away from the glass on the tray and he tried not to laugh. ‘It is the traditional way,’ he replied simply, before handing me the glass. I blew on the surface of the golden-hued tea and let the exotic flavours fill my nose. Some musicians had begun playing in the square, gitane music, with a rhythmic guitar and virtuosic violin. It filled the spaces where our words could not. I had spent the entire time searching the room for somewhere to hide my gaze: the silk rug on the floor, the strange leather slippers by the door that came to a point at the toe, a small wooden table with a gold inlay of Moorish design. Finally, I looked back to him and realised he had been staring at me the entire time. Without breaking his gaze, he stood up, took the glass from my hand and placed it on the tray beside his. Taking my hand in his, he raised me up and I stood so close to him that I could breathe his breath. He bent his head and my lips parted of their own volition. I felt his warm tongue inside my mouth and my only thought was of wanting more. We held each other tighter and I had the sensation that I wouldn’t be close enough unless … ‘Opaline,’ he said huskily, breaking my chain of thought. ‘Yes?’ ‘Tell me if you wish to stay or leave,’ he said, his breath heavy. ‘For I fear I will not have the chivalry to ask you again.’ All mental activity had ceased. For the first time in my life, my sensuality took the lead. ‘Stay.’ The room was narrow, just large enough for the brass bed. A voile curtain fluttered in the breeze from the open window. It was almost dark, save for a low candle guttering in the corner on a table. All of those years in my adolescence, how I worried that I wouldn’t know what to do! If only I had understood that there is no ‘knowing’. Only instinct. His body glowed golden in the candlelight, the sweat on his skin like an aphrodisiac to me. ‘Did it hurt?’ he asked. ‘Only a little,’ I replied. Pain is the price of pleasure, I had read somewhere once. I was no longer a


and sorrow of John Clayton and his wife Alice, from the day they left England until an hour before he was struck down by Kerchak. D'Arnot read aloud. At times his voice broke, and he was forced to stop reading for the pitiful hopelessness that spoke between the lines. Occasionally he glanced at Tarzan; but the ape-man sat upon his haunches, like a carven image, his eyes fixed upon the ground. Only when the little babe was mentioned did the tone of the diary alter from the habitual note of despair which had crept into it by degrees after the first two months upon the shore. Then the passages were tinged with a subdued happiness that was even sadder than the rest. Chapter 25 143 One entry showed an almost hopeful spirit. To-day our little boy is six months old. He is sitting in Alice's lap beside the table where I am writing--a happy, healthy, perfect child. Somehow, even against all reason, I seem to see him a grown man, taking his father's place in the world--the second John Clayton--and bringing added honors to the house of Greystoke. There--as though to give my prophecy the weight of his endorsement--he has grabbed my pen in his chubby fists and with his inkbegrimed little fingers has placed the seal of his tiny finger prints upon the page. And there, on the margin of the page, were the partially blurred imprints of four wee fingers and the outer half of the thumb. When D'Arnot had finished the diary the two men sat in silence for some minutes. "Well! Tarzan of the Apes, what think you?" asked D'Arnot. "Does not this little book clear up the mystery of your parentage? "Why man, you are Lord Greystoke." "The book speaks of but one child," he replied. "Its little skeleton lay in the crib, where it died crying for nourishment, from the first time I entered the cabin until Professor Porter's party buried it, with its father and mother, beside the cabin. "No, that was the babe the book speaks of--and the mystery of my origin is deeper than before, for I have thought much of late of the possibility of that cabin having been my birthplace. I am afraid that Kala spoke the truth," he concluded sadly. D'Arnot shook his head. He was unconvinced, and in his mind had sprung the determination to prove the correctness of his theory, for he had discovered the key which alone could unlock the mystery, or consign it forever to the realms of the unfathomable. A week later the two men came suddenly upon a clearing in the forest. In the distance were several buildings surrounded by a strong palisade. Between them and the enclosure stretched a cultivated field in which a number of negroes were working. The two halted at the edge of the jungle. Tarzan fitted his bow with a poisoned arrow, but D'Arnot placed a hand upon his arm. "What would you do, Tarzan?" he asked. "They will try to kill us if they see us," replied Tarzan.


they are out of my way. I've seen none like Edgar." "You may see some. And he won't always be hand- some and young, and may not always be rich." "He is now; and I have only to do with the present. I wish you would speak rationally." "Well, that settles it. If you have only to do with the present, marry Mr. Linton." "I don't want your permission for that---I shall marry him; and yet you have not told me whether I'm right." "Perfectly right, if people be right to marry only for the present. And now, let us hear what you are unhappy about. Your brother will be pleased; the old lady and gentleman will not object, I think; you will escape from a disorderly, comfortless home into a wealthy, respecta- ble one; and you love Edgar, and Edgar loves you. All seems smooth and easy. Where is the obstacle?" "Here, and here!" replied Catherine, striking one hand on her forehead and the other on her breast; "in whichever place the soul lives. In my soul and in my heart I'm convinced I'm wrong." "That's very strange. I cannot make it out." "It's my secret. But if you will not mock at me, I'll explain it. I can't do it distinctly, but I'll give you a feeling of how I feel." She seated herself by me again; her countenance grew sadder and graver, and her clasped hands trem- bled. "Nelly, do you never dream queer dreams?" she said suddenly, after some minutes' reflection. "Yes; now and then," I answered. "And so do I. I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is one. I'm going to tell it; but take care not to smile at any part of it." "Oh! don't, Miss Catherine!" I cried. "We're dismal enough without conjuring up ghosts and visions to per- plex us. Come, come, be merry and like yourself! Look at little Hareton! He's dreaming nothing dreary. How sweetly he smiles in his sleep!" "Yes; and how sweetly his father curses in his soli- tude! You remember him, I dare say, when he was just such another as that chubby thing---nearly as young and innocent. However, Nelly, I shall oblige you to listen; it's not long, and I've no power to be merry to- night." "I won't hear it, I won't hear it!" I repeated hastily. I was superstitious about dreams then, and am still; and Catherine had an unusual gloom in her aspect that made me dread something from which I might shape a prophecy and foresee a fearful catastrophe. She was vexed, but she did not proceed. Apparently taking up another subject, she recommenced in a short time. "If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable." "Because you are not fit to go there," I answered. "All sinners would be miserable in heaven." "But it is not for that. I dreamt


smile upon everyone in a general state of beatitude. After that, the little brown hood slipped through the hedge nearly every day, and the great drawing room was haunted by a tuneful spirit that came and went unseen. She never knew that Mr. Laurence opened his study door to hear the old-fashioned airs he liked. She never saw Laurie mount guard in the hall to warn the servants away. She never suspected that the exercise books and new songs which she found in the rack were put there for her especial benefit, and when he talked to her about music at home, she only thought how kind he was to tell things that helped her so much. So she enjoyed herself heartily, and found, what isn't always the case, that her granted wish was all she had hoped. Perhaps it was because she was so grateful for this blessing that a greater was given her. At any rate she deserved both. "Mother, I'm going to work Mr. Laurence a pair of slippers. He is so kind to me, I must thank him, and I don't know any other way. Can I do it?" asked Beth, a few weeks after that eventful call of his. "Yes, dear. It will please him very much, and be a nice way of thanking him. The girls will help you about them, and I will pay for the making up," replied Mrs. March, who took peculiar pleasure in granting Beth's requests because she so seldom asked anything for herself. After many serious discussions with Meg and Jo, the pattern was chosen, the materials bought, and the slippers begun. A cluster of grave yet cheerful pansies on a deeper purple ground was pronounced very appropriate and pretty, and beth worked away early and late, with occasional lifts over hard parts. She was a nimble little needlewoman, and they were finished before anyone got tired of them. Then she wrote a short, simple note, and with Laurie's help, got them smuggled onto the study table one morning before the old gentleman was up. When this excitement was over, Beth waited to see what would happen. All day passed a a part of the next before any acknowledgement arrived, and she was beginning to fear she had offended her crochety friend. On the afternoon of the second day, she went out to do an errand, and give poor Joanna, the invalid doll, her daily exercise. As she came up the street, on her return, she saw three, yes, four heads popping in and out of the parlor windows, and the moment they saw her, several hands were waved, and several joyful voices screamed . . . "Here's a letter from the old gentleman! Come quick, and read it!" "Oh, Beth, he's sent you . . ." began Amy, gesticulating with unseemly energy, but she got no further, for Jo quenched her by slamming down the window. Beth hurried on in a flutter of suspense. At the door her sisters seized and bore her to the parlor in a triumphal procession,


you go, he will follow. A relationship with another person will falter under his commitment to you,” I pointed out. Sefa heaved a sigh, opening the doors to the second wardrobe adjacent to the bed. A dozen ivory gowns hung inside. “We have depended on each other for too long. He thinks letting himself love someone will break his attachment to me. I don’t know how to prove to him he doesn’t owe me his life.” Sefa admired the stitching on the hem of a delicate silk gown. She glanced over as I slit open a cushion and stuffed my arm inside. “Are these questions new to you?” I flipped the cushion to its good side and shoved it back to the seat. “It was not my place to ask before.” “But it is now?” Sefa asked, smiling. She parsed the items on Vaida’s beauty table, knocking perfumes and powders together. “If it means anything, it has always been your place to ask.” I stopped slashing Vaida’s cushions. Sefa always did this. Casually offered her heart to me. I had thought it was a personal failing, the ease with which she gave it away. But Sefa—Sefa was stingy with her confidences. She simply chose to trust me, in particular, over and over again. “Sylvia? What is it?” Sefa abandoned the table, perching on the divan beside me. Essiya, Hanim warned. I swallowed past my dry throat. “You were right.” “Right about what?” Sefa frowned. She scrutinized my downcast gaze. Understanding flashed across her features, and her jaw dropped. “Oh, Sylvia, no.” The words spilled with the force of blood bursting from a severed artery. “The Heir—he enrages me, Sefa. I have never encountered a more paranoid man in my life. He lives from one theory to the next, manipulating people with utter detachment, and I can never guess what horrors his mind will concoct. Did you know he eats with his right hand when he is in a good mood and his left when he isn’t? Why do I even remember that? And if he touches me, it does not—I don’t—” I shoved the dagger into the cushion, tearing a diagonal line across the velvet surface. I could not bear to look at Sefa. “He is Nizahl’s Commander. I should burn with hatred every second spent in his presence.” “Do not tell me what you should feel,” Sefa said. Brown eyes met mine without a trace of judgment. “Tell me what is true.” How could I tell her I did not have the words? Words… those were the least of my troubles. They were not my eyes, fastening to him as soon as he entered a room. My heart, beating in double at his nearness. But worst of all, I could not admit to Sefa that the Nizahl Heir made me feel most like myself—and myself was not someone I had the luxury of learning. Vaida’s voice echoed from outside. “She’s coming!” Sefa panicked. “Into the red wardrobe. Go!” I shoved her from the divan, waiting until she pulled the doors shut


if I’d lost him already. My regret hadn’t been total as I wound south around the roads of Topanga. But my regret was already strong, and grew stronger as the minutes and hours passed. Why had I voluntarily left? What was I proving, and to whom? Was this when my interlude with Noah would begin to recede as a pandemic fever dream? I’d checked into the hotel at 3:30, then lay on the bed for a while, planning to read and instead crying myself to sleep for an afternoon nap. When I awakened, I wasn’t sure what time it was, or at first, where I was, and then I realized: 7:18 p.m., and a hotel. I thought of ordering dinner, but instead I texted Viv and Henrietta: Had bad conversation with NB, now in hotel, maybe things are over From Viv: Oh no what happened From Henrietta: Are you okay From me: Weird part is I think he wants a serious relationship/wants me to stay here From Viv: Of course he does you’re a catch From Henrietta: Is that what fight was about From me: Kind of From me: Would it be crazy if I don’t come back to TNO From Henrietta: Then who will write my sketches about the 35 year old who hasn’t figured out how to use a tampon From Henrietta: JK it’s your one wild and precious From Viv: Do you WANT to stay out there From me: I don’t know From Viv: Pretend it’s Monday and you’re about to leave your apt and come to 66 and sit in Nigel’s office for the pitch meeting From Viv: Are you psyched to be back or are you over it all From Henrietta: As you inhale the aroma of Danny’s burps From Henrietta: Or maybe not bc we’ll all be wearing masks? For almost a minute, I held the phone, biting my lip. Then I wrote, It makes me so sad to think of not seeing you guys in the middle of the night From Henrietta: FWIW I’m willing to haunt your dreams * * * — In the morning, I went out for coffee and an egg sandwich that I ate standing outside the café, then I walked on the beach before it got crowded, as the surf roared beside me, not washing away my thoughts. Back in the room, I considered texting Noah but instead googled his name. The so-called top stories were about our hike, and I looked at the photos again, and again felt dismayed at the fit of my leggings, though the dismay was almost immediately eclipsed by a nostalgia for this moment four days before, when we’d been casually holding hands, casually chatting. I took my laptop onto the balcony, sat, and created a new document that I named Pros/Cons. Then I observed the blinking cursor, listing neither pros nor cons of quitting TNO and moving to L.A. I needed some classical music to help me. I went into the room to find my earbuds, and when I returned to the balcony, my


so guarded.” Perhaps it begins with one person. Someone you trust. You remove a piece of armor for them; you let the light stream in, even if it makes you wince. Perhaps that is how you learn to be soft yet strong, even in fear and uncertainty. One person, one piece of steel. I say this to you knowing full well that I am riddled with contradictions. As you’ve read in my other letters, I love my brother’s bravery, but I hate how he’s abandoned me to fight for a god. I love my mother, but I hate what booze has done to her, as if it’s drowning her and I don’t know how to save her. I love the words I write until I soon realize how much I hate them, as if I am destined to always be at war within myself. And yet I keep moving forward. On some days, I’m afraid, but most days, I simply want to achieve those things I dream of. A world where my brother is home safe, and my mother is well, and I write words that I don’t despise half of the time. Words that will mean something to someone else, as if I’ve cast a line into the dark and felt a tug in the distance. All right, now I’ve let the words spill out. I’ve given you a piece of armor, I suppose. But I don’t think you’ll mind. She sent the letter over the threshold, telling herself not to expect a reply. At least, not for a little while. Iris began to work on her essay, trying to sense the shape of it. But her attention was on her wardrobe door, on the shadows that lined the threshold and the stranger who dwelled beyond it. She paused to check the time. It was half past ten at night. She considered leaving the flat to search for her mother. The worry was a nagging weight in her chest, but Iris wasn’t sure where she should go. If it would be safe for her to walk alone this late at night. She’ll return soon. Just like she always does. When the clubs close at midnight. A letter passed through the portal, bringing her back to the present. Iris reached for it. The paper crinkled in her fingers as she read: One person. One piece of armor. I’ll strive for this. Thank you. {10} Station Nine The office was overflowing with felicitations the following day. Iris leaned against the tea sideboard, watching as Roman was greeted with grins and claps on the back. “Congratulations, Kitt!” “I hear Miss Little is beautiful and accomplished. What a catch.” “When’s the wedding?” Roman smiled and received it all graciously, dressed in starched clothes and polished leather shoes, his black hair combed out of his eyes and his face shaven. Another perfect appearance. If Iris didn’t know better—if she hadn’t sat on a park bench with him and heard him confess how reluctant he was to marry a stranger—she would have thought he was thrilled. She


commercial advice (having taken care of pence, the pounds having taken care of themselves). Leopold Bloom (aged 6) had accompanied these narrations by constant consultation of a geographical map of Europe (political) and by suggestions for the establishment of affiliated business premises in the various centres mentioned. Had time equally but differently obliterated the memory of these migrations in narrator and listener? In narrator by the access of years and in consequence of the use of narcotic toxin: in listener by the access of years and in consequence of the action of distraction upon vicarious experiences. What idiosyncracies of the narrator were concomitant products of amnesia? Occasionally he ate without having previously removed his hat. Occasionally he drank voraciously the juice of gooseberry fool from an inclined plate. Occasionally he removed from his lips the traces of food by means of a lacerated envelope or other accessible fragment of paper. What two phenomena of senescence were more frequent? The myopic digital calculation of coins, eructation consequent upon repletion. What object offered partial consolation for these reminiscences? The endowment policy, the bank passbook, the certificate of the possession of scrip. Reduce Bloom by cross multiplication of reverses of fortune, from which these supports protected him, and by elimination of all positive values to a negligible negative irrational unreal quantity. Successively, in descending helotic order: Poverty: that of the outdoor hawker of imitation jewellery, the dun for the recovery of bad and doubtful debts, the poor rate and deputy cess collector. Mendicancy: that of the fraudulent bankrupt with negligible assets paying 1s. 4d. in the pound, sandwichman, distributor of throwaways, nocturnal vagrant, insinuating sycophant, maimed sailor, blind stripling, superannuated bailiffs man, marfeast, lickplate, spoilsport, pickthank, eccentric public laughingstock seated on bench of public park under discarded perforated umbrella. Destitution: the inmate of Old Man's House (Royal Hospital) Kilmainham, the inmate of Simpson's Hospital for reduced but respectable men permanently disabled by gout or want of sight. Nadir of misery: the aged impotent disfranchised ratesupported moribund lunatic pauper. With which attendant indignities? The unsympathetic indifference of previously amiable females, the contempt of muscular males, the acceptance of fragments of bread, the simulated ignorance of casual acquaintances, the latration of illegitimate unlicensed vagabond dogs, the infantile discharge of decomposed vegetable missiles, worth little or nothing, nothing or less than nothing. By what could such a situation be precluded? By decease (change of state): by departure (change of place). Which preferably? The latter, by the line of least resistance. What considerations rendered departure not entirely undesirable? Constant cohabitation impeding mutual toleration of personal defects. The habit of independent purchase increasingly cultivated. The necessity to counteract by impermanent sojourn the permanence of arrest. What considerations rendered departure not irrational? The parties concerned, uniting, had increased and multiplied, which being done, offspring produced and educed to maturity, the parties, if not disunited were obliged to reunite for increase and multiplication, which was absurd, to form by reunion the original couple of uniting parties, which was impossible. What considerations rendered departure desirable? The attractive character of certain localities in Ireland


away a happy drunken night smashing them to bits with iron mallets. Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz was a fairly typical Vogon in that he was thoroughly vile. Also, he did not like hitch hikers. Somewhere in a small dark cabin buried deep in the intestines of Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz's flagship, a small match flared nervously. The owner of the match was not a Vogon, but he knew all about them and was right to be nervous. His name was Ford Prefect*. He looked about the cabin but could see very little; strange monstrous shadows loomed and leaped with the tiny flickering flame, but all was quiet. He breathed a silent thank you to the Dentrassis. The Dentrassis are an unruly tribe of gourmands, a wild but pleasant bunch whom the Vogons had recently taken to employing as catering staff on their long haul fleets, on the strict understanding that they keep themselves very much to themselves. This suited the Dentrassis fine, because they loved Vogon money, which is one of the hardest currencies in space, but loathed the Vogons themselves. The only sort of Vogon a Dentrassi liked to see was an annoyed Vogon. It was because of this tiny piece of information that Ford Prefect was not now a whiff of hydrogen, ozone and carbon monoxide. He heard a slight groan. By the light of the match he saw a heavy shape moving slightly on the floor. Quickly he shook the match out, reached in his pocket, found what he was looking for and took it out. He crouched on the floor. The shape moved again. Ford Prefect said: "I bought some peanuts." Arthur Dent moved, and groaned again, muttering incoherently. "Here, have some," urged Ford, shaking the packet again, "if you've never been through a matter transference beam before you've probably lost some salt and protein. The beer you had should have cushioned your system a bit." "Whhhrrrr..." said Arthur Dent. He opened his eyes. "It's dark," he said. "Yes," said Ford Prefect, "it's dark." "No light," said Arthur Dent. "Dark, no light." One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about human beings was their habit of continually stating and repeating the obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical and decided he quite liked human beings after all, but he always remained desperately worried about the terrible number of things they didn't know about. "Yes," he agreed with Arthur, "no light." He helped Arthur to some peanuts. "How do you feel?" he asked. "Like a


He thought the Saudis would retaliate and that higher gas prices would hurt him politically. Trump effectively proposed giving the regime a free pass. He later admitted as much to the press. Donald Trump’s look-the-other-way foreign policy emboldened the world’s dictators. By paying less attention to human rights and democracy, Trump broadcast a willingness to tolerate repressive behavior from China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and other dictatorships. The attitude will be shared by whoever takes his place. “The populist MAGA movement has created confusion about who our allies are and who our adversaries are, and that puts America in grave danger,” explained Fiona Hill, one of Trump’s top former NSC aides. The moral equivalence has “made us weaker in the contest with Russia and with China.” “We had to push through actions sort of by stealth to counter the Russians,” Hill explained of her time in the White House under Trump. “Putin had him wrapped around his finger the entire time.… He was always kissing Putin’s ass. He wanted Putin’s adulation.” I asked her what motivated the affection for dictators. “One of the reasons Trump didn’t want to clamp down on autocrats is because he wanted to do the same things as them,” she explained. In Hill’s view, this reflected broader MAGA ideology. The movement itself is quasi-authoritarian. She pointed to pro-Trump members of Congress who have continued to call for the United States to pull back from supporting Ukraine, a move that would be a permission slip for Putin to pursue his ambitions in Eastern Europe. Eugene Vindman (brother of Alexander Vindman), served as a top NSC lawyer under Trump. He predicted another MAGA president would allow Russia to absorb neighboring countries, including Belarus and Moldova. “A country of 140 million becomes a country of over 200 million,” he explained, “and a resurgent Russian empire. We’d be in a position where Europe would be far more subject to Russian pressure.” China will also feel empowered to spread its influence. Vindman says Trump or a MAGA successor likely wouldn’t protect Taiwan against a Chinese invasion, despite a multi-decade U.S. commitment to defend the island. Not everyone agrees on this point. A number of Trump’s foreign policy aides argue that—despite the MAGA crowd’s affinity for autocrats—many of them support a tougher stance against China. However, the fact that there is stark divergence within the movement on this question suggests that Beijing might be able to divide-and-paralyze any U.S. response to Chinese aggression under the administration of the Next Trump. And what if the sword is turned on America itself? The U.S. military is one of democracy’s last lines of defense, meant to repel foreign aggression. If it’s turned inward, it can go from a guardrail of democracy to an existential threat. Just as a future MAGA president is likely to commandeer the domestic security apparatus for political purposes, he or she may also deploy the military to assert control inside U.S. territory. Until the Trump administration, the proposition had sounded like the plot of a bad fiction novel. But Donald Trump was a


amber liquid. Brandy? Whiskey? I have no idea. One long leg is crossed at the ankle over his knee. He’s wearing black socks and dress shoes. His right el- bow rests on the arm of the chair, his hand up to his chin, and he’s slowly running his index finger rhythmically back and forth over his lower lip. In the early morn- ing light, his eyes burn with grave intensity but his general expression is com- pletely unreadable. My heart almost stops. He’s here. How did he get here? He must have left New York last night. How long has he been here watching me sleep? “Hi,” I whisper. He regards me coolly, and my heart stutters once more. Oh no. He moves his long fingers away from his mouth, tosses back the remainder of his drink, and places the glass on the bedside table. I half expect him to kiss me, but he doesn’t. He sits back, continuing to regard me, his expression impassive. “Hello,” he says finally, his voice hushed. And I know he’s still mad. Really mad. “You’re back.” “It would appear so.” 211/551 Slowly I pull myself up into a sitting position, not taking my eyes off him. My mouth is dry. “How long have you been sitting there watching me sleep?” “Long enough.” “You’re still mad.” I can hardly speak the words. He gazes at me, as if considering his response. “Mad,” he says as if testing the word, weighing up its nuances, its meaning. “No, Ana. I am way, way beyond mad.” Holy crap. I try to swallow, but it’s hard with a dry mouth. “Far beyond mad . . . that doesn’t sound good.” He gazes at me, completely impassive, and doesn’t respond. A stark silence stretches between us. I reach over to my glass of water and take a welcome sip, trying to bring my erratic heart rate under control. “Ryan caught Jack.” I try a different tack, and I place my glass beside his on the bedside table. “I know,” he says icily. Of course, he knows. “Are you going to be monosyllabic for long?” His eyebrows move fractionally registering his surprise as if he hadn’t expec- ted this question. “Yes,” he says finally. Oh . . . okay. What to do? Defense—the best form of attack. “I’m sorry I stayed out.” “Are you?” “No,” I mutter after a pause, because it’s true. “Why say it then?” “Because I don’t want you to be mad at me.” He sighs heavily as if he’s been holding this tension for a thousand hours and runs his hand through his hair. He looks beautiful. Mad, but beautiful. I drink him in—Christian’s back—angry, but in one piece. “I think Detective Clark wants to talk to you.” “I’m sure he does.” “Christian, please . . .” “Please what?” “Don’t be so cold.” His eyebrows rise in surprise once more. “Anastasia, cold is not what I’m feeling at the moment. I’m burning. Burning with rage. I don’t know how to deal 212/551 with these”—he waves his hand searching for


tottered away, heading towards the village green, hurrying home as fast as her wobbly legs would carry her. She didn’t want to talk to Neil now. She wasn’t sure what to say. She had no idea how she’d ever be able to talk to him about the affair with Carole Frost. Perhaps it was better just to say nothing at all right now. She’d go home, lie down, sober up and her head would clear. Then she’d know what to do. Lin was determined to find out the facts. She needed to be calm, lucid and assertive, to be sure about what was going on. She’d ask straight questions, demand honest answers. And once she knew the truth, she’d tell her cheating husband of fifty years exactly what she thought of him. 29 September was the warmest month of the year, the sun beating down so hard in Middleton Ferris that only Tina Gilchrist stayed outside during the fierce noonday heat. She was working in her allotment, watering vegetables in the sweltering sunlight with a hose pipe while everyone else did their best to stay cool. The Toomeys lazed on their barge, Devlin and Finn swimming in the river, Fergal cooking Joe Grey on the stove or dozing below deck. Gerald Harris abandoned the weeds in his garden to watch cricket on TV. Dangerous Dave retreated to the cool interior of his garage; he was busier than ever, and the money would be useful for Florence and the soon-to-arrive baby. It was as if Middleton Ferris was a melting oil painting in the sticky heat. Cecily sat in the garden drinking lemonade and playing guitar. She had developed an interest in the muddy guitar sound of Samantha Fish and coaxed Jack to help her find a cigar box guitar so that she could practise playing blues music. She was rehearsing daily, sitting by the open door, singing ‘Bulletproof’ until she got it perfect. Bobby Ledbury worked long hours in the fields on the tractors and harvesters with his grandfather George, although George’s pig Nadine would often be asleep in Lin’s garden, rolling in the soil to keep cool. Lin didn’t mind. She enjoyed the company. Neil was out every other day and Lin was quietly angry. She was rehearsing what to say, waiting for the right moment to speak her mind. Neil looked sad, going about his business without a word, wondering why his wife was so distant and preoccupied. Florence found she often needed to rest now. She did the occasional shift at Odile’s café, although Malia cheerily took on most of the work while Florence relaxed on the sofa, dozing or listening to Natalie repeat that she was better off without a fiancé. Apparently, Brandon had called round again to beg her to accept his pathetic apologies, but she would never have him back as long as she lived. She had other fish to fry. Josie spent a lot of time in the cemetery talking to Harry; it was cool there and afterwards she’d sit under the willow tree, thinking


slops on the heads of the combatants. In the shadow of the wall, farmers stood beside their wagons, bellowing out, "Apples, the best apples, cheap at twice the price," and "Blood melons, sweet as honey," and "Turnips, onions, roots, here you go here, here you go, turnips, onions, roots, here you go here." The Mud Gate was open, and a squad of City Watchmen stood under the portcullis in their golden cloaks, leaning on spears. When a column of riders appeared from the west, the guardsmen sprang into action, shouting commands and moving the carts and foot traffic aside to let the knight enter with his escort. The first rider through the gate carried a long black banner. The silk rippled in the wind like a living thing; across the fabric was blazoned a night sky slashed with purple lightning. "Make way for Lord Beric!" the rider shouted. "Make wayfor Lord Befic!" And close behind came the young lord himself, a dashing I 246 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN figure on a black courser, with red-gold hair and a black satin cloak dusted with stars. "Here to fight in the Hand's tourney, my lord?" a guardsman called out to him. "Here to win the Hand's tourney," Lord Beric shouted back as the crowd cheered. Ned turned off the square where the Street of Steel began and followed its winding path up a long hill, past blacksmiths working at open forges, freeriders haggling over mail shirts, and grizzled ironmongers selling old blades and razors from their wagons. The farther they climbed, the larger the buildings grew. The man they wanted was all the way at the top of the hill, in a huge house of timber and plaster whose upper stories loomed over the narrow street. The double doors showed a hunting scene carved in ebony and weirwood. A pair of stone knights stood sentry at the entrance, armored in fanciful suits of polished red steel that transformed them into griffin and unicorn. Ned left his horse with Jacks and shouldered his way inside. The slim young serving girl took quick note of Ned's badge and the sigil on his doublet, and the master came hurrying out, all smiles and bows. "Wine for the King's Hand," he told the girl, gesturing Ned to a couch. "I am Tobho Mott, my lord, please, please, put yourself at ease." He wore a black velvet coat with hammers embroidered on the sleeves in silver thread, Around his neck was a heavy silver chain and a sapphire as large as a pigeon's egg. "If you are in need of new arms for the Hand's tourney, you have come to the right shop." Ned did not bother to correct him. "My work is costly, and I make no apologies for that, my lord," he said as he filled two matching silver goblets. "You will not find craftsmanship equal to mine anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms, I promise you. Visit every forge in King's Landing if you like, and compare for yourself. Any village smith can hammer out a shift of


men." A mosseaten stone monolith loomed over the road, fifty feet tall. Viserys gazed at it with boredom in his eyes. "How long must we linger amidst these ruins before Drogo gives me my army? I grow tired of waiting." "The princess must be presented to the dosh khaleen . . ." "The crones, yes," her brother interrupted, "and there's to be some mummer's show of a prophecy for the whelp in her belly, you told me. A GAME OF THRONES 341 What is that to me? I'm tired of eating horsemeat and I'm sick of the stink of these savages." He sniffed at the wide, floppy sleeve of his tunic, where it was his custom to keep a sachet. It could not have helped much. The tunic was filthy. All the silk and heavy wools that Viserys had worn out of Pentos were stained by hard travel and rotted from sweat. Ser Jorah Mormont said, "The Western Market will have food more to your taste, Your Grace. The traders from the Free Cities come there to sell their wares. The khal will honor his promise in his own time." "He had better," Viserys said grimly. "I was promised a crown, and I mean to have it. The dragon is not mocked." Spying an obscene likeness of a woman with six breasts and a ferret's head, he rode off to inspect it more closely. Dany was relieved, yet no less anxious. "I pray that my sun-andstars will not keep him waiting too long," she told Ser Jorah when her brother was out of earshot. The knight looked after Viserys doubtfully. "Your brother should have bided his time in Pentos. There is no place for him in a khalasar. Illyrio tried to warn him." "He will go as soon as he has his ten thousand. My lord husband promised a golden crown." Ser Jorah grunted. "Yes, Khaleesi, but . . . the Dothraki look on these things differently than we do in the west. I have told him as much, as Illyrio told him, but your brother does not listen. The horselords are no traders. Viserys thinks he sold you, and now he wants his price. Yet Khal Drogo would say he had you as a gift. He will give Viserys a gift in return, yes . . . in his own time. You do not demand a gift, not of a khaL You do not demand anything of a khal." "It is not right to make him wait." Dany did not know why she was defending her brother, yet she was. "Viserys says he could sweep the Seven Kingdoms with ten thousand Dothraki screamers." Ser Jorah snorted. "Viserys could not sweep a stable with ten thousand brooms." Dany could not pretend to surprise at the disdain in his tone. "What . . . what if it were not Viserys?" she asked. "If it were someone else who led them? Someone stronger? Could the Dothraki truly conquer the Seven Kingdoms?" Ser Jorah's face grew thoughtful as their horses trod together down the godsway.


ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you can't stay so, you soon get over it. And so for three days and nights. No difference -- just the same thing. But the next day I went explor- ing around down through the island. I was boss of it; it all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know all about it; but mainly I wanted to put in the time. I found plenty strawberries, ripe and prime; and green summer grapes, and green razberries; and the green blackberries was just beginning to show. They would all come handy by and by, I judged. Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn't far from the foot of the island. I had my gun along, but I hadn't shot nothing; it was for protection; thought I would kill some game nigh home. About this time I mighty near stepped on a good-sized snake, and it went sliding off through the grass and flowers, and I after it, trying to get a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I bounded right on to the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking. My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look further, but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as fast as ever I could. Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the thick leaves and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn't hear nothing else. I slunk along an- other piece further, then listened again; and so on, and so on. If I see a stump, I took it for a man; if I trod on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut one of my breaths in two and I only got half, and the short half, too. When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash, there warn't much sand in my craw; but I says, this ain't no time to be fooling around. So I got all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them out of sight, and I put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an old last year's camp, and then clumb a tree. I reckon I was up in the tree two hours; but I didn't see nothing, I didn't hear nothing -- I only THOUGHT I heard and seen as much as a thousand things. Well, I couldn't stay up there forever; so at last I got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the time. All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from breakfast. By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good and dark I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to the Illinois bank -- about a quarter of a mile. I went out


Ìyá Ẹniọlá—look at my face, ehen—if I had the power to help you, I would.” “Please, I want…I want these children to go to school. It’s their only chance in life. I don’t have any property I’m going to leave them. I have nothing else to give them that can—” “You think I am happy to see you suffer like this? Why do you think I am angry with your husband? God has not blessed this family with wealth, but were you ever hungry? Look at the wells in your neck. If he knew he could not take care of you, why did he marry you? You too look at what you are wearing—were you not better dressed when you lived here?” Ìyá Ẹniọlá looked down at her washed-out ankara dress. The hem had come apart, and if you stared long enough, you could see that it had been patched at the hip. “Let me stop talking about your husband before this becomes another fight.” “Okay sir.” “But, Ìyá Ẹniọlá, I can’t afford to give you more than one thousand five hundred naira. Me too, I just finished paying school fees last week. My purse is still recovering from that.” Ìyá Ẹniọlá leaned forward. Surely she’d misheard. “You just finished paying what?” “School fees, I said school fees.” “For?” “My children.” “Children? It’s okay, Alàgbà, you don’t want to give me the money. No problem.” “Well, our God did not abandon me where you left me.” He gestured towards the door. “You might have seen them outside when you were coming in, my wife has two children from her first marriage.” “Wife?” “Yes, because the sun never sets on God’s mercies, I got married last year. My wife’s first husband died after the last child was born, and since then, she was shouldering the responsibilities of those children alone. That is until last year when we got married. Now they are my responsibility too.” This was joyful news, but Ìyá Ẹniọlá could not even force herself to smile. She let her chin sink into her chest. Alàgbà was the only person she could always turn to at the last minute, certain that he would give her the last cup of gaàrí in his house. There were times when he’d assured her that he would rather starve than allow Bùsọ́lá and Ẹniọlá to go without food. And now she realised that, somewhere in her mind, she had always assumed there would never be anyone in his life whose welfare would come before hers. Who would she turn to now? How would she pay her children’s school fees? And the rent? Would he have told her about his marriage if she hadn’t asked him about the school fees? She studied his face and realised, from the way he held her gaze, as though it was normal for her to learn he was married a year after the event, that he would have kept the information to himself, safe from her. How had she let the years pass without coming to see him? Why had


my eyes shut. “No need to shoot if you don’t want to.” There’s a tinge of worry in her voice. A line between her eyes. “You could fire or discharge or—” “I want to. It’s just . . .” I’m not motorically able to. Which Cece might know, because she crosses her arms, tilts her head in that compassionate way of hers, and tells me, “Maybe if you say it in a funny accent, it’ll be easier? May I suggest Australian? Not to be culturally insensitive, but those closed e’s are just—” “I hated In the Mood for Love,” I blurt out. “And I find very little enjoyment in Wong Kar-wai’s filmography.” Cece startles. Physically. Spiritually. “But . . . but they are amazing.” “I know. Well—I don’t know. They look like I should find them amazing, but to me they’re just sad and kinda slow. Still better than the Russian ones from the seventies, which feel like rubbing brambles against my eyeballs, and I really think producers should stop giving money to Lars von Trier and instead pick a good charity. Even just flush it down the garbage disposal, honestly. And don’t get me started about 2001: A Space Odyssey—” She gasps like this is a theater play. “You said you loved it!” “I . . . Maybe. I mostly repeated things I found online.” She frowns at the backsplash tiles. “Your review did sound very similar to Roger Ebert’s,” she mumbles to herself. “I hate all auteur-style movies.” My mouth feels like a desert. Then it gets even drier when Cece asks me with a scowl, “What do you like, then?” I try to swallow. Fail. “Twilight’s my favorite.” Cece’s eyes bug out. She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it. Closes it. Opens it one last time. “Which one?” she asks, sounding constipated. “I don’t know.” I wince. “All of them. The fourth?” Is that a whimper? Maybe. Yeah. And I don’t know what I expected her reaction would be, but it was not this one. Not her glaring at me and then something hitting me hard on the forehead. And then again. And then— “Is this—” I lift my hands and take a protective step back. “Are you throwing cheddar cubes at—” “Damn right I am!” She takes a two-second break to turn off the stove and starts again. With improved aim and vigor. I back down till the counter stops me. “I knew you weren’t watching hentai porn that time! I knew I saw that shovel-face guy on the screen, I knew it, I knew it, I—” “Not the cheese, Cece!” The stoning stops. And when I peek between my fingers, Cece is there, a bag of Great Value cubed cheddar clutched in her fist, staring at me. Her eyes are brimming wet. “Why?” she asks, and my heart breaks, and I want to take it all back. It was a joke. I love Wong Kar-wai, and Kubrick is the best. I’m still the Elsie she wants, and tonight we can have a Jodorowsky marathon. It’s such


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

rims of his spectacles and his no-coloured eyes looking through the glasses. Why did he say he knew that trick? --Lazy idle little loafer! cried the prefect of studies. Broke my glasses! An old schoolboy trick! Out with your hand this moment! Stephen closed his eyes and held out in the air his trembling hand with the palm upwards. He felt the prefect of studies touch it for a moment at the fingers to straighten it and then the swish of the sleeve of the soutane as the pandybat was lifted to strike. A hot burning stinging tingling blow like the loud crack of a broken stick made his trembling hand crumple together like a leaf in the fire: and at the sound and the pain scalding tears were driven into his eyes. His whole body was shaking with fright, his arm was shaking and his crumpled burning livid hand shook like a loose leaf in the air. A cry sprang to his lips, a prayer to be let off. But though the tears scalded his eyes and his limbs quivered with pain and fright he held back the hot tears and the cry that scalded his throat. --Other hand! shouted the prefect of studies. Stephen drew back his maimed and quivering right arm and held out his left hand. The soutane sleeve swished again as the pandybat was lifted and a loud crashing sound and a fierce maddening tingling burning pain made his hand shrink together with the palms and fingers in a livid quivering mass. The scalding water burst forth from his eyes and, burning with shame and agony and fear, he drew back his shaking arm in terror and burst out into a whine of pain. His body shook with a palsy of fright and in shame and rage he felt the scalding cry come from his throat and the scalding tears falling out of his eyes and down his flaming cheeks. --Kneel down, cried the prefect of studies. Stephen knelt down quickly pressing his beaten hands to his sides. To think of them beaten and swollen with pain all in a moment made him feel so sorry for them as if they were not his own but someone else's that he felt sorry for. And as he knelt, calming the last sobs in his throat and feeling the burning tingling pain pressed into his sides, he thought of the hands which he had held out in the air with the palms up and of the firm touch of the prefect of studies when he had steadied the shaking fingers and of the beaten swollen reddened mass of palm and fingers that shook helplessly in the air. --Get at your work, all of you, cried the prefect of studies from the door. Father Dolan will be in every day to see if any boy, any lazy idle little loafer wants flogging. Every day. Every day. The door closed behind him. The hushed class continued to copy out the themes. Father Arnall rose from his seat and went among them,


with others she spoke for many minutes, before arriving at Yotam. He was so close to delirium at this point that he had no idea whether he could articulate any kind of meaningful reply. Sitting beside him, she offered a sip of warm cauliflower soup from a Thermos, the most delicious liquid he’d ever tasted. She spoke to him in English, occasionally addressing a question in Mandarin to her interpreter, asking him to tell the story of his life. Yotam had been so relieved to talk, to do anything to take his mind off the world around him, he’d babbled about his childhood, his military service, his love story with Eitan, the most intimate details spewed up in an unbroken monologue. Song didn’t say a word until the very end when she thanked him and moved onto the next refugee, giving him no indication of her purpose or whether what he’d said was of any interest. One week later she had returned to him with a proposition. Once winter was over, she would be transferring to McMurdo Station, explaining that she was a geneticist and it had already been decided that genetic adaptation was the only chance humankind had of surviving the cold. Despite the apparent anarchy, there was a plan. The newly created governing alliance of nations had been pondering the future, believing the only way to stave off extinction was to behave in ways that had once been considered morally and ethically unacceptable. ‘I need a team of assistants. People devoted to my work. You will do exactly as I say without question or dissent. You will work harder than any person has ever worked before. We’ll do things that no person has ever done before. What do you say?’ Yotam had said yes. MCMURDO CITY HISTORIC OLD TOWN THE CANTEEN NEXT DAY ENTERING THE CANTEEN FOR BREAKFAST, Yotam had no intention of leaving Copper tied up outside, figuring people wouldn’t mind the company of a handsome husky while they ate. As it happens, compared to the metropolises of old, New York, Berlin, Delhi, Tokyo, very few citizens of McMurdo City became sick with minor illnesses in part due to the monastically healthy diet but also because the levels of viruses and bacteria were dramatically lower on this freezing continent. All upper respiratory tract diseases died out within four weeks of arriving and with no new arrivals from the warm world, there were no new pathogens and no new pandemics. Today breakfast was synthetic protein porridge cultivated in the food labs, topped with grated tussock-root and fortified with ground-up vitamin pills, the supply of which was set to run out in a matter of months. Each bowl was accompanied by mugs of warm seal milk turned vivid green with powdered algae. Since the kitchen team had become concerned about his weight, it was agreed that he was too thin for life in Antarctica, Yotam was fed a penguin-egg omelette which he ate out of obligation while others eyed his plate enviously, puzzled by his lack of appreciation for this delicacy.


and thirty-eight metres long, twelve metres wide, its nose was wedged on the rocky shore, having navigated to Antarctica from the port of Île Longue, Western Brittany. It had been separated from the rest of the French fleet and was now surrounded by an eclectic flotilla of fishing boats and civilian yachts. The sailors guarding the hatch of the nuclear submarine saw the attempt to disembark and after some discussion moved over to them, inflating one of their luminous orange rafts which they positioned under the base of the ladder to stop people falling into the water. By this point the group of passengers around Liza had grown to include numerous Italian scientists who’d listened to her argument about the need to be on shore. The debate was spreading through the ship and by the time the ladders were safely positioned over the orange life raft over five hundred people had gathered at the bow wanting to join the evacuation. Before climbing down, Atto assessed the freezing waters, warning Liza: ‘If we get wet, we’ll become cold, and if we’re cold, we won’t survive.’ In the life raft, the French sailors pointed out that there was no space for them inside the submarine. For the third time, as though she were a preacher repeating a religious parable, Liza explained her belief that the only way to be sure of safety was to be on the mainland. Their bodies needed to be in contact with the continent of Antarctica; they’d travelled so far, they’d sacrificed so much, it was madness not to take these final steps. If she was wrong, if the boats turned out to be safe, they could return. Atto translated into French and the sailors listened in silence. Liza added, no longer equivocating: ‘If I’m right, being inside that submarine won’t protect you.’ The orange raft arrived at the black rocky shore and, without any fanfare or deliberation, without acknowledging the significance of the moment, Lisa stepped out onto a continent she’d never dreamt of visiting, a land that until this moment held no place in her imagination – the most desolate land on Earth that was now her home. ANTARCTICA TRINITY PENINSULA SAME DAY THIRTY MINUTES REMAINING GIVEN TO HIM BY HIS father before they’d said goodbye, Atto was wearing olive green neoprene waders with insulated latex boots, deep-sea fishing gear designed for extended periods in the harshest of conditions. With no waders for either Liza or Emma, they’d improvised cold-weather clothes with a mix of layers, sports undershirts, hooded tops and oversize heavy wax rain jackets taken from the fishing boat. Their hiking boots, intended for hill-walking, were wrapped tight in plastic bags and duct tape, none of which could be easily removed. Atto had offered his neoprene clothing to Liza, but she’d refused, pointing out that they were too big and, more importantly, they were a parting gift from his father. It was unthinkable for anyone to wear them except him, although they were already noticing the envious looks his clothes were getting from the people around


women see visions and the helpless way she hung on him made men dream dreams. “Tea Cake, you sho is a lucky man,” Sop-de-Bottom told him. “Uh person can see every place you hit her. Ah Their Eyes Were Watching God 173 bet she never raised her hand tuh hit yuh back, neither. Take some uh dese ol’ rusty black women and dey would fight yuh all night long and next day nobody couldn’t tell you ever hit ’em. Dat’s de reason Ah done quit beatin’ mah woman. You can’t make no mark on ’em at all. Lawd! wouldn’t Ah love tuh whip uh tender woman lak Janie! Ah bet she don’t even holler. She jus’ cries, eh Tea Cake?” “Dat’s right.” “See dat! Mah woman would spread her lungs all over Palm Beach County, let alone knock out mah jaw teeth. You don’t know dat woman uh mine. She got ninety-nine rows uh jaw teeth and git her good and mad, she’ll wade through solid rock up to her hip pockets.” “Mah Janie is uh high time woman and useter things. Ah didn’t git her outa de middle uh de road. Ah got her outa uh big fine house. Right now she got money enough in de bank tuh buy up dese ziggaboos and give ’em away.” “Hush yo’ mouf! And she down heah on de muck lak anybody else!” “Janie is wherever Ah wants tuh be. Dat’s de kind uh wife she is and Ah love her for it. Ah wouldn’t be knockin’ her around. Ah didn’t wants whup her last night, but ol’ Mis’ Turner done sent for her brother tuh come tuh bait Janie in and take her way from me. Ah didn’t whup Janie ’cause she done nothin’. Ah beat her tuh show dem Turners who is boss. Ah set in de kitchen one day and heard dat woman tell mah wife Ah’m too black fuh her. She don’t see how Janie can stand me.” “Tell her husband on her.” 174 Zora Neale Hurston “Shucks! Ah b’lieve he’s skeered of her.” “Knock her teeth down her throat.” “Dat would look like she had some influence when she ain’t. Ah jus’ let her see dat Ah got control.” “So she live offa our money and don’t lak black folks, huh? O.K. we’ll have her gone from here befo’ two weeks is up. Ah’m goin’ right off tuh all de men and drop rocks aginst her.” “Ah ain’t mad wid her for whut she done, ’cause she ain’t done me nothin’ yet. Ah’m mad at her for thinkin’. Her and her gang got tuh go.” “Us is wid yuh, Tea Cake. You know dat already. Dat Turner woman is real smart, accordin’ tuh her notions. Reckon she done heard ’bout dat money yo’ wife got in de bank and she’s bound tuh rope her in tuh her family one way or another.” “Sop, Ah don’t think it’s half de money as it is de looks. She’s color-struck. She ain’t got de kind of uh mind you meet every day.