Unwritten afternoon trickyI never saw the money again, but it was not long before I saw Feodorowna again in the company of the oil tycoon, whom she adored and whom she soon left for a far more monstrous Czech. unwritten afternoon tricky “In a way,” I said, “what’s happened with Theon, my husband, was the same as with my father. I cut my hair and threw away all my old clothes and my old life. And I’m here today to get new clothes to go along with my new life.” The lovers’ dance on the third day of the New Year was a series of continuous movements in which each movement was a preparation for the next, when an inkling of the one that came afterward was hidden in the movement that came before. A clearly formed dance from beginning until end. The dance following intermission was a logical continuation of the dance preceding intermission. It had sometimes crossed my mind to try out a woman, but I felt it would be too much of an undertaking, and maybe show a certain disrespect for the male sex, about which I had no complaints, so to speak. It would have been impossible to complain about my most recent adventure, with Yves, if I hadn’t simply forgotten about the man already. There is a Chanel style of elegance, there was a 1925 or 1946 elegance, but there is no national fashion. Fashion has a meaning in time, but none in space. Just as there are Mexican or Greek dishes, but no authentic cuisine in these countries, there is a regional type of clothing (the Scottish plaid, the Spanish bolero), but nothing else. Fashion came from Paris, because for centuries everybody used to meet there. “That’s my scene,” he said to me. ‘Deh,’ said Larney, ‘notdoh.’ “Rip his arm off, Murdo!” a young man with long blond curls called to the older man in a loud whisper. “He vowed to send me to die on his plantations in the Indies,” Duncan said at last. After this violent exercise, Madame de Ch?vign? went back to bed, out of breath. “I had just had my sixth naming day when some old British officer, stinking of wig powder, came to say we had twenty-four hours to pack and leave. My papa and uncles got us into boats that night, for he said he would never have us become slaves of the British. Forty or fifty of us fled, along theBay of Fundy. One boat overturned and no one swam away. One couldn’t sail fast enough and was taken by a British sloop. A score of us made it to Castine on the Penobscot Bay, and my father started a new farm among the French who lived there. For just a couple years, he said it would be, then we would go south, ’cause he said some of our cousins were going to the Carolinas where they would be safe. But the British kept sending troops to search for us. One night we had to flee into the woods with only the clothes on our backs. My father and brother went one way and told my mother and me to meet them in three days at the trading post in the north. We had an Indian, an Abenaki, who helped us on the farm and my father sent him with us. He kept us safe. But when we had to swim a river, he said my mama must take off her skirts or the water would pull her under. She refused, out of modesty.” Analie looked into the flames. “She never came out. She was swimming one moment and was gone the next, like a beast had swallowed her up. There are three clouds high in the sky where none were before, two round ones over the sea, and a third a vertical stripe hanging negligently over S?lheimaj?kull Glacier, shining bright, just like the time when Dad said: The new-fallen snow makes it glisten so. FORAIN Despite having as a child refused tomatoes, refused olives, refused mushrooms, despite having as a child been unwilling to eat anything at Chinese restaurants save the white rice, and despite having as a child made a diet nearly entirely from couscous with butter and Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies, and for some reason, cauliflower— an achromatic diet — despite all that, I have historically had little tolerance for finicky children. I try not to judge such children, since they are children, but in the end I find I do judge the children and I judge the parents as well, even as it was through no effort on my part that I eventually became someone who will eat most anything. “And to your long, great friendship,” added my mom. Did we make some sort of deal? I said, tossing two packets of dried apples into my cart, though I never ate that at home, then or at any other time. I hate dried fruit. It’s probably the result of all the prune compote I was forced to eat as a child, which caused me major digestive problems. What are you implying? As the head fell back it revealed a bullet hole in the man’s throat; the tie and shirt collar were soaked in blood. There must have been another bullet in his chest, because after Sponer withdrew his hands his gloves were wet and sticky. Not unless I’m a mutant.. |