Читать книгу Talent - Juliet Lapidos - Страница 9

Alana catches the train from Boston to Cincinnati, snagging a window seat. Deborah sits next to her and strikes up a conversation about fur coats. It’s as good a topic as any. War. Peace. Life. Death. Fur coats. When Deborah exits the train, Eleanor takes her place. Eleanor’s topic is animal cruelty. After Eleanor, Francine talks pet insurance, and Georgina talks vegetarianism. Alana politely plays her part, never acknowledging the alphabetical chain or thematic connections, which, anyway, never amount to anything. Not only is there no climax, there is no sense of building, of anything wagered or gained. Each conversation, each story, is as meaningless and effervescent as the last. If there’s any point at all it’s to show my hand.

Sergeant Davis calls his troops together. Vietnam. They need a volunteer for a perilous mission. “I’ll do it, sir,” says Private Johnny Johnson. Sergeant Davis describes what Private Johnson has to do in extreme detail, every step of the way, to retrieve medical supplies accidentally dropped behind enemy lines. This will go on for pages and pages until the reader feels bored stiff and absolutely despises me. Private Johnson salutes his superior in a patriotic fervor. He sets out. Before he can complete step one he trips over a branch right onto a mine and gets blown up. Guts everywhere.

Strange to say Vietnam was nothing to me. Five years younger, it would have been everything. I was just old enough not to have to really care, in life or in writing. A lucky year for boys, 1938. What would the Chinese call it? Year of the … some animal just the right size to hide in a burrow while the predators get their fill.

Lewis and Don, old school friends, haven’t seen each other in years and years, stretching into decades. Too long. Far. Too. Long. Lewis recently won a prize — he’s an architect — and he can’t wait to tell Don all about it. Before Lewis gets the chance, Don starts talking about himself. He got a raise at work. His mistress is young and beautiful. His car is fast. His son is a quarterback. Banal, small-bore stuff, not nearly as significant as the prize. (The prize is a Big Deal.) Lewis is turned off. He decides not to share his accomplishment. And suddenly he feels wonderful. Elated. He doesn’t understand but what’s happened is simple enough. What he doesn’t share belongs to him alone.

I was fourteen, skipping rocks at Walden Pond. Veronica Lancet was there with her family but she managed to get away from them. In a quiet moment she kissed me. It was my first kiss. I remember her tongue felt like wet fruit. I remember, when I looked at her the next day, feeling like an ice cube coming apart in hot tea. Extremities tingling. Heartburn-like sensation around the, um, heart.