hamish hamilton presents Five Dials

number 29 Weight to Lift

richard ford On freezing notebooks david bezmozgis The life of a strong man deborah eisenberg Short fiction leo tolstoy Drinking leads to military service césar aira But don’t look back

. . . Plus: Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Zimbabweans in London, new poetry from Jack Underwood and Jonny Reid, the children’s literature of Northern Ireland, and reflections on both the Evening Standard and Nabokov’s breakfast choices.

Also: Éric Reinhardt and some ‘mythical perversity’. CONTRIBUTORS

césar aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina, and has patrick loughran lives in London. published more than seventy books. He avoids first-person narra- jonny reid’s poems have appeared in magazines such as Stride, tion at all costs and has a fetish for paper, notebooks and pens. In Magma, Stand, the Warwick Review, PN Review and Clinic. He his own novel La silla del águila, Carlos Fuentes imagines that in graduated with an MA from the University of Manchester and is 2020 César Aira wins the Nobel Prize for Literature. currently studying for a PhD at Royal Holloway. mark beldan is an artist based in London. éric reinhardt’s fifth novel, The Victoria System, was pub- david bezmozgis is an award-winning writer and film-maker. lished in English translation by Hamish Hamilton in July. His His stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s and the first play, Élisabeth ou l'Équité, will be running this autumn at the Walrus. David developed his first feature film, Victoria Day, as a Théâtre du Rond-Point in Paris. screenwriting fellow at the Sundance Labs in 2006. His first novel, daniel sherbrooke is the author of the ’zine Even My Clean- The Free World, was published internationally in 2011. David was ing Lady Has a Cleaning Lady. born in Riga, Latvia, and lives in Toronto. A version of his essay was included in the anthology Jewish Jocks published by Twelve cheryl taylor’s work can be found at cheryl-taylor.prosite. Books in the U.S. com. She has been featured in the AOI’s Best of British illustra- tion annual Images on three occasions. deborah eisenberg is a short-story writer living in New York. She has received numerous awards for her work, includ- leo tolstoy left the University of Kazan without a degree in ing a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and 1847. a night in jail for her involvement in a Civil Rights Movement jack underwood is a librettist, poet and co-editor of the project in the 1960s. She was heralded as ‘one of the most impor- anthology series Stop Sharpening Your Knives. In 2009 he was a tant fiction writers now at work’ in The New York Times review participant in the Faber New Poets programme. Jack lives in of her collection of short stories, Twilight of the Superheroes. Deb- Hackney. orah teaches at the University of Virginia. rachel willson-broyles is a freelance translator whose richard ford was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1944. He is credits include Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s novel Montecore. She lives the author of Independence Day, the first ever novel to win both in Madison, Wisconsin. the Pulitzer Prize and the pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Can- ada, his latest work, was published in 2012. Ford taught writing at the University of Michigan and Princeton University. Editor: craig taylor richard godwin is a contributor to The Breakfast Bible by Seb Publisher: simon prosser Emina and Malcolm Eggs, published by Bloomsbury. Assistant Editor: anna kelly eric hanson is a writer and illustrator. His work has appeared in publications such as McSweeney’s and The New York Times. He Five Dials stafers: remi graves, noel o’regan, marissa has most recently illustrated the cover for John Waters’s mem- chen, sam buchan-watts, paul tucker, jamie fewery, oir Role Models. Eric lives in Minneapolis and his website can be ellie smith, caroline pretty, jakob von baeyer and found at er-h.com. emma easy hasani is a writer from Zimbabwe who left his native country Thanks to: ann marie peña due to political strife. He writes poetry and short stories and Designed by: dean allen advocates for the recognition of human rights and justice in Zimbabwe. He currently lives in London. He is a member of the Unless otherwise noted, illustrations by: cheryl taylor Freedom from Torture’s Write to Life, a creative writing group based in London, and is also a member of Exiled Writers Ink. @fivedials jonas hassen khemiri, born in Sweden in 1978, is the @hamishh1931 author of three novels and six plays. His second novel, Mon- tecore, was translated into more than fifteen languages. In 2011 Invasion! premiered in New York and Khemiri was awarded a Village Voice Obie Award for playwriting. a letter from the editor sion of that review.’ No matter: with a little digging, any curious reader can find the excised passage. In it, Weiss writes: On Swedes and Open Letters ‘But despite Khemiri’s passion, those still thinking of the horrific terrorist attacks at the Boston Marathon might well be went to Sweden a few years ago – we approach them in a dour Greco-Roman tempted to ask: What practical alternative I get around – and during my visit to the style. He is in another league altogether. to profiling would you suggest?’ city of Malmo I got talking to a local pol- His novels have the flare of a Mexican If the restored review does make its itician who was exceedingly blunt about wrestler coming of the top rope at way to Sweden sometime soon, you may the social make-up of the town. Malmo speed, wearing one of those glittering hear the sound of Khemiri letting out a houses, among others, newcomers from masks. long sigh. Recently he has spent plenty of Iraq, Serbia, Montenegro, Lebanon and Khemiri is the author of three novels: time and energy dealing with coded (and Iran. In all of Sweden, it boasts the high- One Eye Red, Montecore and I Call My not so coded) defences of racial profiling, est proportion of residents with migrant Brothers. He won a playwriting Obie in especially those of the ‘If not this, then backgrounds. This infusion, the politician 2011 for his play Invasion!, which examines what?’ variety. noted, has generated acrimony: Malmo’s the identity of that curious species, the Back in March, Jonas published an mosque, the largest in Scandinavia, was ‘Arab male’ and scrutinizes the idea of open letter to Beatrice Ask, Sweden’s set on fire in 2004. The man spoke with racial profiling. The play recently finished Minister for Justice, after she brushed of Swedish matter-of-factness concerns over racial profiling about the struggles of integra- on a Swedish radio programme. tion. It’s rare that a municipal The letter quickly became the politician looks you in the most shared article ever in Swe- eye within minutes of being den’s social networking circles. introduced and says, in efect: As background, let me quote Hallo, we’re struggling. I can’t an introduction to the letter quote the guy – my hands were written by translator Rachel full and I wasn’t there to take Willson-Broyles. notes – but it did make me curi- ‘In 2009, the Swedish govern- ous about what is happening in ment,’ Willson-Broyles writes, Sweden, especially since, as we ‘along with law enforcement and were putting together this issue, the Swedish Migration Board, Sweden decided to ofer all Syr- implemented Project reva, a ian refugees in the country per- programme meant to expedite manent residency. According to cases dealing with people who the domestic news agency TT, it are in Sweden illegally.’ This was the first country in the EU programme was implemented to do so. in Stockholm, where police Not long after my trip to checked IDs of anyone who Malmo, I met a Swedish writer they suspected didn’t have named Jonas Hassen Khemiri. proper papers. ‘Despite the fact At first we kept our conversa- that police are not to ask for ID tions light and discussed the solely on the basis of appear- importance of breakfast. (At ance, many say they have been this particular writer’s retreat, questioned because they don’t he was impressed with the Five “look Swedish”, raising concerns Dials porridge-making tech- that police are practising racial nique. I’d like to think he’s gone on to a run in Chicago at the Silk Road Ris- profiling in an attempt to increase depor- make his porridge at low heat, which ing theatre. In the Chicago Sun-Times, a tations.’ is the key.) Then, back in issue 21, we reviewer named Hedy Weiss mentioned Jonas’s open letter asked Beatrice to published three of Jonas’s short stories. that though the play is ‘full of punch’ step out of her own body, if only for a His work grapples with the Sweden she doesn’t ‘buy’ the work’s arguments while, so she could feel what it was like described by the politician from Malmo, against racial profiling. An editor’s note to know the blunt edge of reva. We’ve but when I say ‘grapple’, he is not squar- at the bottom of the text warns readers: printed it on page 29 because we like it so ing up to issues of identity and race with ‘A previous version of this review con- much. Also, Jonas has promised us more resignation. Yes, the subjects are impor- tained language about racial profiling that short stories and we want to make sure tant: the definition of ‘Swedishness’ may have been perceived as expressing a we get first pick. needs to be updated. Khemiri does not political opinion. This is an updated ver- ‘The letter was published in the culture

3 section of a Swedish newspaper,’ Jonas groups was actually quite surprising,’ he enced living as undocumented migrants in told me a few days ago via email. ‘A lot of writes. ‘I think they were scared by the Sweden. If we can work on our Swedish people posted it and reposted it during the fact that so many people linked to the translation, we’ll be publishing more from next twenty-four hours. Many Swedes text, since they have the self-image of the far north in future issues. are fed up with the right-wing govern- representing a silent angry majority.’ Speaking of strong men (there was ment’s lack of solidarity and have similar As a result, the reva project was mention of wrestlers in paragraph two), and worse experiences. Both Beatrice Ask criticized and Swedish police stopped we’ve got one of our favourites, David and our prime minister, Fredrik Rein- controlling IDs in the subway. But it is Bezmozgis, writing in the issue about one feldt, were confronted with the letter and important to remember, Khemiri points of the great Jewish weightlifters of all forced to answer questions about racial out, that the same kind of racial profiling time. We’ve got helpful fiction tips from profiling.’ continues in poorer areas outside the city César Aira and Richard Ford, the latter A hashtag was created – #bästabeatrice, centre. ‘Sweden,’ he says, ‘is, like many demonstrating the resilience of strong which means #dearbeatrice. Twitter was countries, in a position where we need images, even if they’re kept for years in flooded with testimonies of racial dis- to revisit and re-examine our national the deep freeze. We’ve got articles on the crimination like this account from a man identity. It’s only natural that this creates children’s literature of Northern Ireland, named Arman Maroufhani: ‘When mum, a sense of fear in some people. Hope- the breakfast choices of Nabokov, and for who’s worked in the Swedish pharmaceu- fully discussions like the one created sur- those who live in London, or even those ticals industry longer than I’ve been alive, rounding the reva project will help us to who have walked its pavements at around looks for work and is asked if she can take update our self-image and create a new, 5 p.m. on a weekday, an essay on the a language test #BästaBeatrice.’ more dynamic myth about ourselves.’ A Evening Standard newspaper. There’s poet- Khemiri’s letter went on to enjoy an dynamic myth that would include, we ry by Jonny Reid and Jack Underwood, illustrious life. It was translated into suppose, Swedes who don’t resemble Bea- and we’ve decided to include a short story around fifteen languages, including recent trice Ask. at the back by Deborah Eisenberg. It’s a publication in Japan. ‘Some of the rage Khemiri has begun a writing workshop bonus, a reward. that the letter provoked in Swedish racist for people who are living or have experi- —craig taylor

4 Our Town

‘In London, Man is the most secret animal on earth’ Laurie Lee, I Can’t Stay Long

Place: Greenwich Date: October 1, 2013 Time: 4:10 pm

This issue’s itinerary: The only noise at Green Park; my first bedsit in Streatham; Princess Eugenie; ornate birthmarks; an Act of God; my Zimbabwe; the library

5 endell st, wc2 Daniel Sherbrooke reads the Evening Standard

t around dusk, on 12 October 2009, the Evening Standard and stands in an archway, dancing from foot to foot. I wanted Abecame a free newspaper. The previous evening, copies had to see if she’d stop dancing while she handed me my change. been sold for 50p, and now, at the same points across London, at Handed me. Handid. the mouths of Piccadilly Circus and Holborn tube stations and According to the weather reports you can find online, 12 many others, the free paper was handed out by people wearing, October 2009 was mostly clear, and when you speak to some of I seem to recall, some sort of windbreaker, or, as they call them the people at the Standard – and by that I mean the people they here, ‘windcheater’, with the words ‘Evening Standard’ sten- palm you of with when you call – they say that the switch to cilled neatly on the back. Another group of people stood nearby free distribution was a success, no hitches. Personally, I remem- in the dusk, handing out London Lite, another freebie. It used to ber light rain that evening. A change had been ushered in. It was be that if you wanted to fill a bag with free evening papers, no a time when some of us thought about how much we hated one could stop you. You used to see bins stufed full of copies change and its consequences. The paper could justify moving of thelondonpaper, and even old Metros from earlier in the day. to its free format because under the previous owner it had been Pages torn from the newspapers wafted up above the pavement losing millions. In a city of 8 million, it had been selling only outside Liverpool Street station, where the cool air from the 100,000 copies a day. Now, circulation has trebled, or ‘tripled’, as street mixed with the warmth rising from the concourse. It was I used to say. The Standard has won awards. Time Out magazine garbage central, rubbish central. Up to that day in October, the went free not so long ago. Music went free about a decade ago Standard had been coveted. You’d spent money on it, after all. – it all feels connected. I remember downloading songs, upstairs London Lite ended just over a month later, on Friday 13 Novem- in my first bedsit in Streatham, peering at my big monitor as ber. Thelondonpaper was put out of its misery back on 18 Septem- it threw out heat and, I’m sure, radiation of the deadliest sort, ber 2009. watching the percentages of the download grow on-screen, the A few commuters were confused on that October evening. lengthening of the purple horizontal line – let’s call it a deep- They refused to believe the Standard was free. They set stacks of lilac-coloured line – creeping from 75 to 81 to 95 per cent. At the 20p coins on the blue metal of the distribution boxes, expecting end of the process you’d have one of those old Napster MP3s a 10p coin to be slid back to them, making that metal-on-metal with its distorted sound. If you listened hard through head- sound. Some of them were used to an honour system, giving phones, it sounded like someone was jangling keys somewhere three coins and taking 10p from a nearby stack. They knew the at the edge of the song. I remember Metallica and their lawsuit rhythm of the transaction, the feel of the evening. The sound of against the downloaders, against stuf becoming free, those pho- the voices changed, too. The man who shouted ‘handed’ on tos of them with their lawyer and their receding hairlines. That Endell Street was replaced by a man who said ‘Tandid’, and the was surprising – Metallica had receding hairlines. I saw photos of guy who just yelled ‘did’ disappeared entirely; at least, I didn’t them recently with wobbly skin, veiny hands, their faces mois- see him again. The Tandid man didn’t call out the word, which turized, ardently moisturized. They were ageing, dying . . . And is what I was used to. His was a conversational sound, almost a Justice For All. question. I think all of us, everyone walking past, would have ‘Tandid,’ said that guy near Piccadilly. One man we used to preferred the old aggressiveness. ‘You want this,’ the previous see when we visited the Chinese health place near Leicester voice had said. ‘I want this,’ I’d reply. Square said, ‘Noose-paper.’ Noose. Paper. He was absolutely At some drop-of points the distributors said nothing. They determined to saw that word in half. He wasn’t from another stood there, cradling a stack of newspapers in their left arms, one country; it wasn’t due to an accent. He was just cutting that copy folded in their right hands and held out as a ofering. In word in half, time after time. some places a stack of free papers was deposited on the pavement, After it went free, I started noticing that the Standards left and we obediently bent down to retrieve one. The only noise at behind on public transport were treated diferently. People on Green Park, one of those drop-of points, was the man nearby the tube began tipping them on to the floor; they’d let a copy trying to sell a magazine, calling out, ‘Gissue. Gissue.’ slide from their laps as they stood for their stops, without a sec- I usually bought my copy of the Big Issue from a vendor down ond thought. People began tucking them behind their heads on in south London with whom I’d cultivated a relationship over the tube – copies they were eager to get rid of before switching the years. I always bought it from him in the hope he would lines – and you’d notice someone across the carriage eyeing a remark on how long our relationship was stretching out, issue copy, claiming it. And the person who stuck it behind would see after gissue. I don’t know why he wandered around Clapham them eyeing the copy and you could see them saying with their North station, kicking the bike racks, fingering the plastic Big eyes: it’s mine until I get up. It may be behind my head, but it’s Issue credential badge that hung around his neck. I suppose he mine. wasn’t allowed to leave his patch. I once bought a copy of the Big I started wiping my foot on them. On the floor of the night Issue from the vendor who appears each morning on the Strand buses they were there, wet with lager, ripped and dependent on

6 that single staple on the spine for structural integrity. There was folded up and left behind, and notice a severe bleed. The young no investment, no ownership; you didn’t have to be protective. Londoners in the ‘Londoner’s Diary’ section sometimes look like They were shared between strangers. My flatmate Gordon said they were born with ornate birthmarks. I think I once saw Prin- to me once that when the Standard went free people just started cess Eugenie staring out with a pink rash creeping up her neck, jizzing them everywhere; it was social intercourse, you know. I like one of the photos you might see stuck to the window of the said to him, ‘Why do you have to make everything as disgust- Chinese health place near Leicester Square. They purport to cure ing as possible?’ He said that it was just one more thing passed ibs, insomnia, migraines, depression and creeping rash, Eugenie between strangers in London: suspicious glances, the occasional rash. knowing look, now Tandids. ‘I meant,’ he said, ‘jizzing in the I remember one copy of the Evening Standard had printed a best possible way. I’m allowed to describe things how I describe photo of Prince Harry coming out of a club late at night. What things.’ had happened to his skin? Something had gone wrong with the I sometimes picked an Evening Standard of a bus seat and came colour and he was given a blurred second face, escaping to the across someone’s half-filled crossword puzzle, which rarely hap- left of his first face. I remember sitting on the bus and showing pened before October 2009. I’d usually look through the clues the photo to Gordon. ‘It’s like he’s saying, “I can’t be king,”’ said and think, What sort of person scratches out 27 down, ‘insult Gordon. ‘“I’m leaving here. I’m leaving myself.”’ deliberately’? At what point did someone think, Fuck this, and I’ve got the Evening Standard’s colour image parameters in front give up? You’d look through the clues and notice they didn’t get of me right now. Total ink weight = 240 per cent. Min dot = 3 ‘Bulgarian capital’. A few people living in London, out in Ealing, per cent. Max dot = 90 per cent. It’s worth paying attention, as in a flat with five others, would know the answer these days. failure to meet the following specification may delay your sub- People give up at the most interesting points. Their stops, maybe. mission. Colour: cmyk. Pantone with appropriate cmyk Map- The Evening Standard has been in colour since I arrived here. ping is accepted but not recommended. I don’t know exactly Mostly the colour behaves, but every so often I’ll find a copy what it means, but it also says, ‘Black starts at 40 per cent.’ ◊ brixton, sw9 A life away from the asylum By Hasani

p here by the window, Brixton library, daydreaming. or towel queues. It was worth staying, if only for the chance to UBefore me an accounting textbook, open at another dif- barter what you eventually got for what you actually needed. A ficult chapter: ‘Accounting for Overheads’. I can only see little race to rid oneself of the useless paper we called money before it squiggles on white paper. I cannot concentrate because my mind turned into toilet paper. Most of the time supermarkets would is back home, in another era. An era when the whole country be so empty you might have thought they sold shelves. was like one huge asylum, and everything was going wrong. The kids are now crossing Efra Road. Thank God they have When we lived in darkness, and just switching on an electric road rules here and electricity. I can see cars behind the bold light required an Act of God white lines waiting for the kids to cross . . . and red buses. I can From here, I can see some school kids in rows with their only remember one red bus in the asylum, which was confiscated teachers at the trafc light, waiting for the green man so they can by the authorities during the election campaign period. One cross Efra Road. They are coming from the Ritzy cinema just aspiring candidate was using it for campaigning, and it attracted next door, maybe having watched Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, a lot of people. The red bus enraged the authorities like the with the sad story of Jean Valjean stamped on their memories. matador’s cloak enrages the Spanish bull, and they impounded The orderly crocodile! It reminds me of the queues. It takes it for good. There are no more red buses in the asylum, only me home again, to the asylum. Queues of people snaking for small vans. The vans were designed to carry fifteen people, but miles, and not neatly like the children down there. Those kids in the asylum they carry twenty or more. The vans are just like have their teachers to keep them in line. In the asylum we did the churches, which always have room for one more, or London not have such orderly queues to buy a packet of sugar, or bread, pubs, which don’t close their doors to anybody. In the asylum or to withdraw useless paper which we called money from the those vans do not wait for kids to cross the road at the zebra atms. crossing or at trafc lights. The trafc lights are useless poles Instead of teachers, we had soldiers, the police, and the mili- because there is no electricity for them. The kids there wait for tia, which we called green bombers. They used the excuse of the vans to pass or they will get run over. keeping order but were in fact jumping the queue to buy the A siren wails down the road towards them. London is full of same basics, no luxuries. Sometimes we did not know what we sirens. They’re busy rounding up those of us who escaped from queued for. We always made it a point to join any queue and the asylum, only to find ourselves asylum seekers – along with ask later what it was for, and most of the time, halfway through, all the other ‘illegal immigrants’ I read about; people without sugar queues would turn into rice queues or ice cream queues papers, just like Jean Valjean.

7 Maybe it’s the Metropolitan police racing down Brixton Road dark glasses, ready to start a war with poor civilians queueing for to arrest an illegal immigrant, or an ambulance taking an illegal anything. Ambulances are long gone, and you carry your sick immigrant to an nhs hospital, maybe King’s College, or the fire in wheelbarrows if you can’t aford to hire a taxi. As for the fire brigade rushing to put out a fire caused by an illegal immigrant. engines . . . if their water tanks are as porous as sieves, I doubt The immigrants have been in the news of late, their number their sirens work. ‘three times more than the population of Newcastle!’, according ‘So, Blair, keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe,’ to one newspaper headline. said Robert one day at an international environment conference. In the asylum, if you hear a siren you’d better behave else Blair managed to keep his England for ten years and Bob has kept you’ll be in the soup. Don’t wave at a motorcade, lest you be his Zimbabwe for thirty-three years. Is that not the reason I left arrested ‘for undermining the president’. The only siren in the the asylum and find myself seeking asylum in this cold country? asylum is that of the presidential motorcade. The presidential car Sitting up here in the library with this accounting textbook is like a queen bee in flight, protected by stern-faced men with before me, I can see why I am just an overhead. ◊

a list ‘If a little bird enters into the café . . .’ Five essentials you’ll never learn on a creative writing course.

By César Aira

1. 4. ‘Irony is a courtesy, a secondary efect of good manners. It ‘I follow my whims; I follow the spontaneous decisions made in involves distancing yourself, opening up a space for ideas or the moment. For serious deliberation and sensible decision-mak- positions other than your own. I’ve never taken myself very seri- ing there’s real life, where I conduct myself like the most proper ously, which has given me permission not to take anything or middle-class family man. Writing is my freedom, where I receive anyone very seriously. Ultimately, irony toes the dangerous line orders from no one, not even from myself.’ of disdain. I guess it depends on the person using it. I think my irony is tinged with kindness, it’s more humorous than acid, a 5. smiling acceptance of the world just as it is.’ ‘If a little bird enters into the café where I’m writing – it did hap- pen once – it also enters into what I’m writing. Even if a priori 2. it doesn’t relate to anything, a posteriori I make it relate . . . In ‘I use gaps in memory as a way to make jumps in time, give my spite of all my admiration for Surrealism and Dadaism I never stories a less linear rhythm, and create surprise. It’s also a very liked the mere accumulation of incongruous things. For me, eve- plausible technique; it’s quite realistic, because our lives are made rything has to be sewn together in a very conventional fashion. up more by what we forget than what we remember. Generally I always think of something. And what I think of also changes speaking, I’d say I’m a fan of forgetting; it’s liberating, and usu- the course of the plot. Since the next day something diferent ally errs on the side of happiness, while memory is a burden. It’s will happen at the café, the plot continues to change accordingly. an ally of remorse, resentment, nostalgia, and other sad emo- That sinuous thread in my novels is more interesting to me, tions.’ more writable, than a linear plot.’

3. Sources: 1. Ox and Pigeon interview; 2. BOMB Magazine; 3. ‘I don’t like books that, like a prostitute, ofer themselves to the Louisiana Channel; 4. Kill Your Darlings; 5. BOMB Magazine reader.’ Compiled by Remi Graves

8 poems

By Jonny Reid

Spinal Tap Feedback

they turn the sublime to eleven el-ev-en the number of stif-white slices of bread surrounding a mallard who tries to eat everything at once in this hiss of canada geese snapping free / his curly tail-feather a dark comma of drake / floating away in the noise / away along the wet morning grass , cut

The Road after Lorca

Las Vegas

the last oasis

our black Mustang honeymoon with greenbacks in a bag

though we’re en route it’ll run out before Las Vegas

through dust plains drift black Mustang harvest moon

death blinks from the towers of Las Vegas

O snake yellow line O hungry Mustang O Death Valley

can wait a while before we make it Las Vegas

9 the life of… more thrilling. In the Soviet Union, as elsewhere, Jews were subject to the same stereotype: feeble, bookish, cowardly. Grigory Novak A Russian-Jewish librarian at Harvard, where I did my research on Novak, asked David Bezmozgis on the trials of the first Soviet weightlifting champion me if I knew the shortest Soviet joke. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Jewish athlete,’ she said. For y father, born in 1935, was a profes- refused to participate in any competi- an entire generation of Soviet Jews, my Msional sportsman. This was not so tions sponsored by the capitalist coun- father’s generation, Novak was the refu- unusual for a Soviet Jew of his generation. tries, including the Olympics. Instead, tation of that joke. He played hockey for his hometown of they devised their own version of the The lives of athletes are inherently Daugavpils. During his army service, he Olympics, called the Spartakiad, for dramatic and often colourful, but even was chosen for the soccer team. But the socialist athletes from around the globe. by these standards Novak’s life was core of his life was devoted to weightlift- But any records Soviet athletes set at extraordinary. He was born in Cherno- ing. He attended the Institute of Physical these competitions weren’t recognized byl, Ukraine, in 1920. His mother died Education in Riga, where he concen- in the West. So, after the Allied victory when he was three. As a boy he became trated on the sport. In his group of eight over the Axis powers, and in light of enamoured of the circus and performed were three other Jews, Lusik Gutterman, the Soviet Union’s more integrated role as an acrobat. In the early 1930s his father Fima Kaufman and Senya Shlick. In other in world afairs, Stalin finally allowed moved the family to Kiev. When he was groups – for hockey, soccer, boxing, Soviet athletes to face their capital- eleven, Novak went to work with his wrestling – were more Jews. By the time ist opponents. The intent was to show father, digging foundations for buildings. I was born, in the 1970s, my father was the world the superiority of the Soviet Even at this young age he displayed pre- working as an administrator for Riga man. That this important task fell to the ternatural strength. In contests between Dynamo, organizing competitions and Soviet weightlifters wasn’t incidental – builders and carters, Novak outwrestled overseeing athletes. He had also attained then, as later, the Soviets valued feats of and outlifted grown men. In 1937 he his certification as an Olympic-grade physical strength. And at the time, some joined the wrestling club at Dynamo weightlifting judge. And, on the side, he of the Soviet Union’s most accomplished Kiev and immediately demolished his ran a bodybuilding class, particularly athletes were weightlifters, among them competition. There, he caught the eye popular with young Riga Jews. I grew several Jews. On the team that went to of the weightlifting coach and by 1939 up surrounded by sportsmen – burly, Paris were three Jews, Yefim Khotimsky, he had set his first Soviet record, which vital men, with cauliflower ears, flat- Moisey Kasyanik and the 26-year-old exceeded the world record. By the sum- tened noses, Russians, Latvians and Jews. Grigory Novak. But it was Novak who mer of 1941, when the war began, Novak I grew up also with stories of famous caused a sensation, setting two world was middleweight champion of the Soviet athletes, many of whom my father records and beating his Western oppo- ussr, a married man with a young son. knew personally. Victor Tikhonov, the nents by a wide margin to become world Because of his stature, the Soviets quick- saturnine, legendary coach of the Soviet champion. ly evacuated him to Novosibirsk, and hockey team, was my father’s friend. It’s difcult, I think, to convey the allowed him to bring his wife and son. Before he was summoned to Moscow significance of this event today, but at His own father managed to flee Kiev just to take charge of the Red Army hockey the time, Novak was the most celebrated ahead of the Germans. His wife’s family squad, Tikhonov coached for Riga athlete in the Soviet Union. Accounts of remained behind; her mother and sister Dynamo. My father trained his hockey his triumph were printed in all the Sovi- were murdered at Babi Yar. players. My father also knew the great et papers. Pravda ran a massive headline In Novosibirsk, Novak was made a world champion Gennady Ivanchenko, a that proclaimed, ‘Grigory Novak – Rus- lieutenant in the Red Army and tasked Riga Dynamo lifter, the first man in his sian Hero.’ That Novak was not Russian, with training Nordic ski troops. His weight class to press, snatch, and clean but a Ukrainian Jew, wasn’t something repeated requests to be sent to the front a combined 500kg. My earliest concep- the articles mentioned. Ethnicity, or were denied. A member of the military tions of manhood stemmed from this nationality as it was more commonly Soviet of Novosibirsk called him in world and they were reinforced over referred to in the Soviet Union, was a for a meeting. They had the following the years by my father’s stories – which charged issue, always more charged for exchange. he told and retold, often at my bidding. Jews, and never as charged as it was dur- The greatest of these, or at least the ones ing the post-war years when Stalin was —Lieutenant Novak, you remember nearest to his heart, concerned Grigory launching his anti-Semitic campaigns. It that on June 22nd 1941 you were Novak, my father’s own boyhood hero. isn’t hard to imagine how galling it must supposed to perform in Kiev at the Grigory Novak was the first Soviet have been for Stalin and other Soviet opening of the new stadium. world champion. He accomplished this anti-Semites that their magnificent —That’s correct. feat in Paris in October 1946 at the first strongman was a Jew. But as galling as it —And not simply to perform, but to world championships held after the must have been for Soviet anti-Semites, break Soviet and world records. war. Until then, the Soviet Union had for Soviet Jews, it couldn’t have been —That’s correct, Novak replied, I was

10 supposed to break Soviet and world anti-Semites. He responded with his fists. man was his long-lost uncle, his father’s records … Among Jews, these exploits also entered brother, now a wealthy industrialist. The —And could you not now, here the popular lore. Novak was the most uncle had lavished Novak with presents. in Novosibirsk, demonstrate such visible exemplar of how a Jew could This was a black mark against Novak. results? be: strong, tough, unintimidated. I saw What’s more, there was the problem of —If you will forgive me: who needs this in my father and his friends. If chal- Novak’s records. He’d set a record of set- these records now – isn’t there a war lenged, they snapped shut, coiled and ting records. By some counts he’d set as on? glowered. A man didn’t tolerate insults; a many as one hundred Soviet and world —Comrade Lieutenant, clearly there is man didn’t let himself be pushed around. records. In the Soviet Union, athletes much you don’t comprehend. Particu- Novak’s career as a weightlifter came were financially rewarded for every larly here and now are such records to a close in 1952. That year he com- record they set. Nobody stood to benefit needed! Do you understand from this arrangement quite your mission? like weightlifters. Even if a —Yes. man could beat a prevailing —Then fulfil it. record by five kilos, he would —I will, Novak replied. do so incrementally, half a kilo at a time, accumulat- In Novosibirsk, despite not ing ten times the records and having trained properly, Lieu- rewards. Novak wasn’t the tenant Novak set two Soviet only weightlifter to do this. records, again exceeding the Decades later, the great Vasily world marks. Alexeev, whom my father also From there he continued knew, did the same thing. And on the path that ultimately then, in another version of the led him to Paris, a path that story, Novak isn’t censured for had strong overtones of the his capitalist relations or his picaresque. For instance, there avarice but for hooliganism. In is this detail: in 1944, when this version, a drunken Novak he moved to Moscow, he was nearly kills a hotel porter assigned living quarters in what when he throws him down a was formerly the women’s flight of stairs. dressing room of the Palace Novak was famously unre- of Sport ‘Soviet Wings’. The strained. He liked a drink. room was unheated and infest- Could this have happened? ed with rats. Novak trained in Was it simply a drunken rage? the corridor. When the elec- As I contemplate this, I am tricity went out, his wife stood visited by a hazy memory of beside him with a candle. a story my father told: a Jew- Even though he competed ish weightlifter throws a man mostly at light heavyweight down the stairs after he calls and heavyweight, Novak stood him a zhid. no more than five foot three Whatever the reason, Novak inches tall. He had typically was publicly denounced, Jewish features and a shock of dark hair. peted in the Helsinki games, the first stripped of his ceremonial titles, cut In publicity photos his hair is styled in Olympics for the Soviet Union. He went from the Soviet team and refused some a pompadour, but during competitions to the games nursing injuries. He was significant sum of money owed to him it was often unruly. When he bounded also thirty-two, the twilight years for a for his records. In short, he was humili- on to the stage in Paris, the audience weightlifter. Nevertheless, he won a sil- ated. The experience must have been greeted him with laughter. Novak didn’t ver medal. After the games he returned traumatic, as it was for many Jews of understand why. The next morning he to a Soviet Union that was reaching the period, but Novak responded with saw a caricature of himself in the French the peak of Stalin’s anti-Semitic mania. unusual resilience, returning to his first press: a sphere with stumpy arms and This was the period of the Rootless love: Novak joined the circus. Already in legs and a little blobby head. The caption Cosmopolitans campaign and the Doc- 1952 he began appearing to great acclaim read: ‘Novak rolled on to the stage like a tors’ Plot. Jews were being purged from across the Soviet Union. His early rou- ball, banged out his 125 kilos, and rolled Soviet society. Novak wasn’t exempt. A tines featured acrobatics and juggling out.’ case was prepared against him. In Paris, with weights. In one famous number Back in the Soviet Union, despite in 1946, he had been approached by an he pressed a barbell with two massive his renown, he sometimes encountered older Jewish man. It turned out that the globes over his head, then lowered it

11 and released from within the globes a ing room of a female acrobat. In a flash, give you all info about him. Facebook led stream of trained dogs. The authori- Novak pounces on the bear and wrestles me to her. Her father, Novak’s nephew, ties, seeing how little chastened Novak it into submission. In another encoun- lived in Boston; I was in Cambridge. It was, launched a second campaign against ter, Novak gets the better of a fearsome seemed outrageously propitious. What him. The newspaper Trud printed an Himalayan Bear. cosmic forces had had to align to bring article accusing him of stealing a towel In his later years, Novak performed about such a coincidence, that I should and a water glass from a provincial hotel. in variety shows as a raconteur. He also find the world’s greatest authority on These were nasty times, but by 1953 Sta- wrote poems. In 1980 he was hired to Grigory Novak on the other side of the lin was dead and Novak was on his way choreograph part of the opening cer- Charles River? I was given his phone to his second incarnation of stardom. He emonies of the Moscow Olympics. But number. He also had a Facebook page. It spent the next three decades in the circus. one week before the games, Novak suf- identified him as a graduate of the Kiev Khrushchev rehabilitated him, and to his fered a heart attack. One source claims University School of Journalism. He title of Honoured Master of Sport was it was his tenth. It was perhaps another, listed among his interests poetry, music, added Honoured Performer of the Rus- grimmer, kind of record. This time, he and art. And he had composed some sian Soviet Republic. didn’t recover. lines about himself in imperfect English In time, Novak brought his two In my search for him, Novak proved espousing his love for the sun, the rain, sons, Arkady and Roman, into his act. elusive. Very little had been written flowers and his family, and also declaring A grainy Internet video shows them about him in English. The Soviet press that he was a better person than others doing extraordinary things with barbells: was compromised. Other Russian- believed him to be. they stand on one another’s shoulders language accounts were anecdotal. And and, with impeccable balance, lift the then there were my memories of my One evening, I called him. He asked me heavy weights above their heads. The father’s memories. But one day, trolling to explain what I wanted. After I told same video captures them performing the Internet, I chanced upon a weight- him, a brief silence followed. He then Novak’s signature spectacle: the elder lifting site that had a little digitized said: ‘I don’t believe in altruism. If there Novak lies on his back and supports with newsreel showing Novak executing is one word I despise, it is altruism. Tell his legs a shiny metal track upon which the press – his best event, the one that me, what’s in this for me? I am a writer his sons ride around on motorcycles. As demanded the most raw strength. On the and a journalist. I have written hundreds always, incredible stories proliferated discussion board, in response to some- of articles and many plays, poems, and about him. Not a few involved bears. In one’s question, a woman from Hartford songs. Nobody knows as much about one, a bear on roller skates breaks free had written: Novak is my uncle!! If u have Novak as I do. But why should I give of his minder and barges into the dress- any questions, let me know, my father can away this valuable information to you? I have researched you. I see you make movies. Maybe you can turn one of my plays into a movie? Or you could help me stage one of my plays? Or, if you won’t do this, I would be willing to col- laborate with you on this article. This way I will also get credit. Such things are often done. I have done it before. Or, at the very least, you can pay me for my information. Nobody in the world knows as much about Novak as I do. Not even his son, Roman. Everything oth- ers have written is full of errors and lies. You have probably read Evgeny Geller’s book. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He simply repeats the same old myths. People don’t even know where or when Novak was born. I know. I knew Novak personally and for many years I collected my mother’s stories. I know remarkable things about the fam- ily. For instance, there was an ancestor who married a gypsy. But I won’t simply give away these things for free. Why should I? And without me you will never know the truth.’ He wouldn’t budge. Neither would I.◊

12 questions for… Éric Reinhardt The French author discusses with Anna Kelly the varied palette of his latest book and the message at its core: ‘The human, the particular, feeling, poetry and love have got to count as much as money.’

5D: The Victoria System is an incredibly istic and the autobiographical, slowness always one step ahead, she has mastered ambitious novel, incorporating numerous and urgency, about the timeless and the the art of massaging the information real- strands and ideas and fusing diferent gen- ultra-contemporary. The Victoria System ity ofers, and this is what I wanted the res. What was your inspiration? developed as a mix of references and of reader to feel, through the view of the palettes as diverse as Euripides, Michael narrator – a man of the left who is ide- ER: I see myself not just as a writer but Mann, Gérard de Nerval, opera, the alistic and a little rigid, slightly didactic, as a contemporary creator – the artists Financial Times, Marivaux, the construc- who will never manage to know who this I think of when I’m working are visual tion site of a skyscraper, and a sort of por- woman really is, all the more so because artists, choreographers, theatre direc- nographic display – with the hope that new facets of her life and personality con- tors, film-makers and architects. On these from it would result particular sensations, tinue to reveal themselves with the flow grounds I’m constantly thinking about an impact, pleasure, a insight into our of the novel, creating the dizzying sense how to develop the art of the novel. world, and, especially, an aesthetic. of the floors of a building falling through. It’s taken for granted that visual artists By a certain point David himself has and architects, for example, should be 5D: The Victoria System progresses through become uncertain: he is no longer as preoccupied with contributing to the various revelations of crucial information squeaky clean or blameless as it might renewal of their artistic discipline, but which change our opinion of the char- seem at the beginning of the novel. From not so much for writers, who don’t feel acters at each turn. How do you decide the beginning I wanted to write a novel as obliged to develop innovative forms. when to reveal and when to withhold structured like a series of successive doors Why would a writer in 2013 write in the information? which each, when pushed, open on to an same way that a writer in the ninteenth entirely new reality. The book doesn’t century did? Would we construct build- ER: The initial idea was the character of a contain certainties; it’s a piece of reality ings today in the same way that we would powerful woman, ultraliberal in her poli- on which the perspective is constantly have in 1880? It’s important, I think, tics, about whom the reader would never shifting. I wanted it to be like a hall of that as well as telling stories, novels also really know where exactly she is, what mirrors, with the reader never knowing reflect on the art of the novel, and bring she thinks and what her true intentions what the truth is: David and Victoria take something new, something diferent, are. Victoria is always moving, hurry- it in turns to undermine and support their which hasn’t yet been seen – but without ing, fragmenting and compartmentaliz- own world views, they seem alternately necessarily being experimental. At any ing, which allows her to be permanently believable and discredited in a continual rate, this is an ambition which I can work adjusting to changes in circumstances so reversal of perspectives, right up to the towards, with the absolute fantasy being that she can perform to as high a level as last page. This is one of the things I to one day have a radically new or unbe- possible. Lying is not quite lying, in a way, worked on most when I was writing this lievably ‘true’ idea, which would initiate if someone is never in the same place; if book. a new paradigm. the day after a meeting she doesn’t see the This being said, I think that after a face of a person discovering that what 5D: Some of the French reviews describe twentieth century which was rich in the she told them the previous day was not, Victoria as a symbol of capitalism and avant-garde, we’re now actually living in in fact, the whole truth. Victoria is not David’s conflicted obsession with her as a time which is more about synthesis than cynical though. She is always sincere in a symbol of most of Western society’s it is about revolution. With the form of the moments when she’s engaging with attachment to it. How far does this anal- my previous novel, Cendrillon [Cinderella], something or taking something on; she ogy work for you? I refused to choose between diferent just knows perfectly well that truth is literary genres or methods. With The only ever relative and time-specific (espe- ER: The analogy works, but David’s Victoria System I’ve continued this desire cially in an era when events and circum- attachment to Victoria is very critical, to reunite in one book what could seem stances move at a stupefying speed), hence very ambivalent. What fascinates him is irreconcilable, disharmonious. I wanted her ability to change her position without her power, her freedom, her prosperity it to be at the same time formal investiga- ever feeling guilty or that she is betray- and her passion for life. The peculiar- tion and entertainment, a book about the ing herself. Victoria wants to live life ity of what she makes him experience inner self and about the outside world, completely and get to where she wants to appeals to him enormously, as does the the intimate and the technical, the novel- be by the shortest possible route. She is luxury of the hotel rooms she invites him

13 to, the bottles of champagne she ofers the future, can focus even on how it noxious, deleterious, destructive. As we him, the audacity of her sexuality and her can profit from it in the short term, or saw in 2008, we can’t really trust those in existential ultraliberalism. But at the same it can withdraw into itself by trying to the world of finance; just as a sex addict time she inspires in him feelings of rejec- preserve its rights and its way of being will dismiss everything standing in the tion and rebellion, to say nothing of envy at whatever cost. My book probably way of their quest for fresh flesh and new and jealousy. David accuses Victoria of suggests a third way: concerned for the sensation, so the bankers completely set being centred on herself and of profiting common good but sensitive to ultraliber- aside reality and the consequences of personally from globalization without alism’s energy and taste for risk – a more their actions as long as they’re able to ever thinking about the meaning of what social-democratic attitude. satiate their need for more money. The she’s doing, about the common good, crisis we’re going through shows the about the future of our planet. He accus- 5D: Is that the moral message to be weakness of a system based purely on es her of having only a very short-term drawn from the book? the quest for profit: we have to put the view, of being preoccupied solely with human back at the centre of our priori- the immediate satisfaction of her person- ER: Whether in economics, ideology ties. The human, the particular, feeling, al pleasures, be they financial or physical, or personal life, when people don’t fix poetry and love have got to count as sensory, sexual – even if Victoria allows any limits and their only objective is much as money. For me, Victoria doesn’t him to profit from them himself. Seen to earn as much money as possible or die because of her unrestrained sexual- in this way, this passionate relationship feel as much pleasure as possible, things ity (which I find wonderful) but because throws light on the friction or dilemma can only end badly. It’s what happened of her inability to stop, to find a happy in which old Europe finds itself in the with Dominique Strauss-Kahn, it’s what medium, to know her limits. Victoria face of globalization: what challenges happens in my novel with Victoria, it’s is destroyed by her ultraliberalism and the two lovers are two world views, one probably what’s currently happening in by the blind rush forwards which she is progressive and ultraliberal, and one our economy. Financial capitalism isn’t trapped in, and which allows her to for- more social but paradoxically more con- a bad thing in itself; it’s the industry’s get that her life rests on a void, on delu- servative. In the same way, either Europe structural inability to control itself, to sions and illusions. If there has to be one, can abandon itself unreservedly to this regulate itself (exactly like Victoria in that would be the moral of my novel. general trend without being afraid of the novel), which makes it potentially so 5D: Would you describe yourself as a political writer?

ER : Yes, absolutely. There is a political dimension to every one of my books. It’s not the only dimension, but it’s undoubtedly there. I’ve always felt the desire to talk about the world in which we live through the prism of the particular and sub- jective experiences of my characters. I’m interested in individuals, in individu- als grappling with a social reality, with power, with the forces which get the better of them, which debase them, which dis- tance them from themselves. As for ultraliberalism and financial capitalism, how better to take stock of how our world charges madly and blindly ahead than by bringing this to life for readers through characters who charge madly and blindly ahead – and who

14 concentrate in themselves and in their through which the narration will have this way, through successive revelations actions certain positions of our era? I to pass, I have a strong sense of what my in a particular time and place, often in like sowing discord when I write; it’s by novel is, but I never know in advance dialogue. Nothing happens apart from doing this that we can try to throw of how it’s going to unfurl – I can only see what you see. And theatre doesn’t work balance the usual perceptions of our con- a few days ahead. My thoughts are a lit- so diferently, so I felt in my element as temporaries and lead them to see things tle like the headlights of a car, which soon as I began writing the play. diferently. illuminate only a few dozen metres of The true diference between a novel the road in front of me, but then again and a play is of course that the latter 5D: How do you begin work on a new I know exactly where the road is lead- consists solely of dialogue, the rest being novel? ing. It’s worth remembering that a book condensed in stage directions written is also a life experience and that life is without literary intentions. And yet ER: I alway let a book ripen in me never decided in advance. There are what demands most work in the writing while I’m still writing the previous things we can predict and anticipate, but of a novel is the filling out of its flesh, one. I always have one or two books in on the whole it remains for us to invent that is, everything which helps the nar- my head, even if, for many months, the it, at the same time that we are discover- rative to progress, or which is the inti- idea has to remain quite a vague feeling, ing it and living it. Writing a book like mate and marvellous stuf the narrative an urge to begin, a place, a character, a this requires intense concentration: you is made from, and an end in itself: the theme. Thinking about the next book have to keep in your head, all the time, descriptions, the setting out of the situ- makes the one I’m in the middle of writ- all the information in the book, all the ations and themes, the digressions and ing more desirable to me, allows me to narrative threads, in order to be able to meanderings, the psychological analyses, write it in a surge of energy or urgency. identify the moment where each one the many diferent observations – within For me, nothing would be worse than comes into play or comes to the fore or all of which, of course, the dialogue knowing that there wasn’t another book is intertwined with the others. In The can take place. With a play, there is only waiting. Victoria System there are so many of these dialogue, there are only the nerves; it’s Once I’ve finished a book and decided strands that arranging them did cause me the narrative reduced to the essential, to to write the next, I go over everything quite a lot of stress! what is the most vivid: the sentences the I’ve already got. I prolong this work of characters exchange. letting the material mature by docu- 5D: Your very first play is scheduled for I’d add something else important. menting everything, I take notes to clar- performance in Paris this November. While with my novels I progress in ify my ideas, I enter into a sort of reverie the writing by instinct, before launch- around my characters and the elements ER: I love theatre and I’ve always want- ing myself into the play I had to write of the narration I’ve been able to assem- ed to write a play – but I was waiting a synopsis of it, which was more than ble – and then one fine day I decide to for a director to ask me to, because my forty pages long. I felt I needed to tell confront the terror that writing inspires interest in it is so closely linked to the the story to myself, to know its route in me and I create a Word document direction, and I had no desire to sit in my before I lived it through the writing of it, with the name of my new novel fol- room writing something that might nev- to know in advance every tiniest detail, lowed by ‘.doc’. er be staged. And then Frédéric Fisbach, right up to the end. Why? Because a well-known French director I admire theatrical expression doesn’t aford any 5D: Once you start actually writing, enormously, asked me to write for him. approximation: each sentence, each how much do you know about what the His last play, Mademoiselle Julie, with Juli- word, governs the direction of the nar- finished book will be? ette Binoche, was put on at the Barbican ration. As the author one has to know at in London last year. every moment where one is, where the ER: Before launching into the writing characters are in relation to the others proper, I’ll have an idea of the form of 5D: How is writing theatre diferent and where a particular scene is meant to the book. The form is the truth of a from writing prose? be taking us. You can’t find your way as book, its deep necessity. Each book I’ve you go, in contrast to what a novel to written adheres to a form which is spe- ER: Writing this play came quite natu- a certain extent allows; every word has cific to it and without which it would rally because my novels have always pro- to be immediately right – right in itself have remained simply a book idea in one ceeded through scene and scenarios. This and right in terms of the direction it of my notebooks: form is what allows is how my narratives always unfold, by takes the play in. Like watchmaking or a book to come to life. Once the form following the characters through their clockmaking, theatre is an art of great has imposed itself on me, I don’t need actions; at each point in my books we precision, where each word, each gesture, to make a plan, I work by instinct; the are in the present which a character is each sentence, counts. So I wrote a syn- scenery of my book reveals itself as the living, and we follow it to the end of opsis of the whole play before I’d even writing goes along, as do the routes it the scene he is living, in real time, as if begun, so that I could treat the sentences must take to reach its final destination. I it were happening in front of our eyes. as though they were darts, knowing as know exactly where I’m going, I know So from novel to novel I’ve learnt to I wrote each one exactly where I was the final scene and some of the stages construct narratives which proceed in going to throw it. ◊

15 five frames Mark Beldan Can the history of a setting be obscured? What is ‘unlikely colour’ and ‘mythical perversity’? The Canadian artist introduces five paintings.

What will we be looking at over the next few I’m fascinated by the names. ‘City roller and paint tray in the police photos. pages? Park’ is so generic it almost demands a It seems like an aesthetic rather than a nickname. And then the word ‘pervert’ is practical decision – or a point of profes- I tend to paint everyday scenes. I choose so open, it can encompass anything you sional pride as a builder. places I’m familiar with, but I like to ref- disapprove of or fear. erence unfamiliar or uncomfortable nar- Why do your colours nearly wash out the subject ratives about those towns or neighbour- Does a crime actually have to be committed in a matter on the canvas? hoods. This might include crime, mental locale to make it interesting? illness, sexual eccentricity or unexplained I went through a period of making quite events. There was a recent case in the town where dark paintings. It was a good way of Recently I’ve been thinking about I grew up, which is located just outside working around minimal source material, something you might call ‘speculative Toronto. The case was known, informally, and if I wanted to focus on one area or deviance’ or ‘mythical perversity’. An as ‘The Pickering Confinement Room’. A object in the painting, I could reduce eve- exact definition is difcult: the phrase man broke into an abandoned farmhouse rything else to silhouettes. Colour crept would need to describe sites and situations and built a cell in the basement. The room back gradually. I looked at Hammershoi, where the imagined problems have over- was discovered before he managed to who sometimes used yellow grounds taken any actual goings-on. imprison anyone, and the house burned under grey paintings, and Whistler, who down while he was awaiting trial. There often used a decorative colour scheme, Can you think of any particular places? was wild speculation about his inten- rather than any sort of naturalistic palette. tions, but his only crime was breaking and In a way, the colour relationships One is City Park in Kingston, Ontario, entering. between three shades of dark grey and known locally as Pervert Park. I used to He eventually admitted he had intend- three shades of lemon yellow are the walk home across it when I was an art ed to imprison one woman, his wife’s best same. It seems better to introduce unlikely student. It’s a flat, open, sparsely treed friend. He was going through a messy colour into the paintings, even if it risks park between the university campus and divorce and his wife had moved in with being frivolous or inspid. a wealthy lake-front neighbourhood. this friend. The man worked as a build- I don’t want to make too direct a con- Because of its physical layout, it seems dif- ing contractor. His motives were hard to nection between the obscuring of his- ficult to imagine much going on. unpick. Would he have been capable of tory and the washing-out of the image, Apparently it was once a densely forest- kidnapping? Or was it a way of working although I suppose that is part of it. I also ed and well-known gay cruising spot until through his problems? Did he have to con- think of it as an overload, or a burning- Dutch elm disease prompted a large-scale fess in detail so that he couldn’t be accused out, the result of having too much infor- clearance. Forty years later, the name still of planning something even worse? mation. Other people’s take on it can clings, although there are wildly varying It’s a rather minor detail, but I’m be better than my own. Someone once accounts of exactly who is lurking in the obsessed with the fact he took the time told me it was like looking at the world bushes these days. to paint the inside walls white. There’s a through net curtains. ◊

16 Cottage, 2009, Oil on canvas

17 Row, 2010, Oil on canvas

18 City Park, 2012, Oil on canvas

19 Camp, 2013, Oil on canvas

20 Basement, 2013, Oil on canvas

21 poem My Sister by Jack Underwood

Two summers ago when I was going nuts I thought my sister’s ghost lived in our garden. My shoulders felt warm, and I confided. Let me say she was real, then, as a tongue you can bite. Let me say I knew she was very good at hockey, and fun as a tent. She painted roughly, but well, liked boys with beards but not sex with boys with beards. Her hands were the same size as mine. Her voice seemed unafected by gravity and she would often discover herself holding a table’s attention. She told me her ideal man was Picasso, and that her biggest regret was not putting her name firmly on to living, slipping beneath it before she was born. And I regret it in the garden with the dead fireworks, my face going wet, everything crashed on this wall, another summer coming on.

22 let us get some action from… The Five Dials Back Section

This Particular Back Section May Include The Following Elements:

☑ A Single Book The Best Bit ☑ How It Gets Done ☑ How To Write a Letter ☑ From The Archive On Something ☑ Food and Drink I Knew Nothing The Serial Five Minutes to Midnight plus our special bonus section: a short story from the one and only deb- orah eisenberg.

23 a single book The Twelfth Day of July by Joan Lingard

Patrick Loughran on the hope and tragedy of Northern Ireland’s children’s lit

hen I was eleven, my mother gave with dinner almost every night; possible in the sunlight. The tattered cover of the Wme an old copy of the novel The in Belfast too, but in Donegal the mussels book was a stark contrast to this ideal. It Twelfth Day of July. I knew what the date didn’t have to be bought. At low tide, my showed policemen chasing rascally kids in the book’s title meant in the calendar dad showed me rocks crowded with them. wearing improbably colourful seventies of Belfast life, especially for a Catholic We moved around the outcrops, drifting clothes. The book is in even worse condi- family like ours. We were middle class. further from each other, and filled our tion today: it sits in my parents’ house We didn’t go in for any of the nasty busi- white plastic bags until they bulged dark on a shelf that receives full exposure to ness that troubled our little country, but and wet. At times, I wandered several the afternoon sun in summer. Unwanted we lived in an area of long avenues lined hundred feet from the nearest fellow for- books end up here. Even with the infre- with adamant plane trees, less than half a ager, down among the rocks, out of sight quent sunshine of Belfast, covers wither mile from two working-class Protestant of the shore, alone among all this hushed after a few summers. When I’d given estates. One of these estates stood like a life. in to her pleas to disregard the title and guard-post over a major road junction By the end of the following week, finally read it, I suppose my mother on our way home. Each time we drove refreshed after our break, we returned moved the book to this shelf. After it had past, a shotgun was pointed at us by a home to Belfast. As we came back into done its work on the youngest, it could thirty-foot man painted on the side of a the city, the middle of many streets were be retired. (She claims not to remember tower block. He wore a black balaclava scarred and warped where the Protestants having given much thought to moving it and watched us with rigid eyes. He stood had lit their bonfires. I remember burns at all.) ready to peel himself from the wall. It so severe that to avoid damaging our Even back when I read it, the novel’s was an aggressive gesture, that mural, tyres my father traced slow circles around naive hopefulness and its fable-like plot and we seemed to be the message’s core them in our car, as if the black Saab were of reconciliation in Northern Ireland audience. We ignored it all year round: a vulnerable animal cautiously skirting were already beginning to seem unlikely turned our heads, or turned up the radio. a swamp. Glassy debris sparkled in the material for fiction – if only because they We became experts at not seeing that street; the world felt ritually cleansed. seemed like the new reality. Who needed shotgun. For my mother, the novel The Twelfth the story of Kevin and Sadie, a Catholic The build-up to the twelfth of July Day of July was part of a hopeful counter- boy and Protestant girl, who start out was less easy to ignore. In late May, on ritual. The physical copy of the book she as enemies and end up with a powerful certain patches of local waste ground, gave me was indispensable to this rite. bond of understanding between them people laid out stacks of scrap wood. She passed the copy to each of her chil- (the first shoots of love, maybe?), when Over the weeks, each stack grew from dren – my brother in the late 1970s, my Bill Clinton had just stormed Belfast like a jumble of sticks to a peak. The city sister in the mid 1980s, and finally me in a crusading rock star? My parents took us seemed to change shape around the con- the mid 1990s – as we reached a certain to see Clinton speak to a crowd of tens tours of these suddenly erected moun- age when distinctions started to matter of thousands outside Belfast City Hall, tains. Roads we used every day were in new and important ways: boy or girl, when he declared the permanent end suddenly closed, and to get home from pass or fail, Taig or Hun. She gave it to to the conflict was breathtakingly close. school, the supermarket or the swim- me on a sluggish day in early summer. People near us in the throng shinned up ming pool, we took unfamiliar detours in From how worn the book was, I lamp posts to get a better look, and hung our car, often through neighbourhoods I guessed that it had been handed down above us in the air throughout the whole hadn’t yet encountered. When the start of through the family. ‘Your brother and speech. Maybe they had to see the words the actual week of ‘the Glorious Twelfth’ sister both read it when they were even coming from the American president’s arrived, we left Belfast and headed north- younger than you, you know,’ my lips to believe them. At the end, before he west on the M1 motorway to Derry. We mother said, once again hoping despite left the stage, Bill asked us to join him in drove for hours, and eventually, after prior evidence to the contrary that set- welcoming Belfast’s own Van Morrison, what felt like the transition between dif- ting me up in competition with my who jogged on to the full fanfare of his ferent dreams, we crossed over the border siblings would spur me to read more big band and gave a free concert. Only into Donegal. Here, nobody rioted or widely. I imagined my brother and sister the pleas of his Secret Service stopped marched, and for a few days we could each reading the book when they had Bubba Clinton from getting out his saxo- stroll down any country lane we wanted been my age. The pair of them loomed phone and jamming live on-stage with and breathe in the atmosphere of greenest in my mind like figures far greater than Van the Man. Or so the rumour goes. Celtic tranquillity. We ate fresh mussels I, without flaws, Greek sculptures aged The Northern Ireland Ofce (the UK

24 government in NI) must have considered son. We are invited to conclude after this ofered the words of a gentle proposition Clinton’s visit golden material, because two-minute, thirty-second lesson that for the viewer to consider: ‘Wouldn’t it they chose Morrison’s song ‘Days Like the cycle of violence will continue. (This be great if it was like this all the time?’ This’ as the theme music for the advert advertisement, if it’s accurate to call it The ad was undeniably efective: eve- that was soon all over our TV screens that, was shown on prime-time TV for rywhere you went in Belfast, you heard promoting people humming or the ceasefire. singing Van Mor- Before the rison. Suddenly he peace process, was all the rage again, the British like in 1968 when he government’s released Astral Weeks. television It was as if Northern adverts Ireland had paused the addressed to cultural tape at the the people end of the sixties as of Northern the Troubles mounted, Ireland had and then pressed play focused on after the ceasefires and the awful let the tape run from consequences where it had left of. of terrorism In those days, when rather than the ceasefire was still the desirabil- fresh, the atmosphere ity of peace, seemed infused with and had used the spirit of the Age images of the of Aquarius. It was most graphic all beginning to seem violence real and lasting. One to dissuade day, some government potential agency, I now don’t paramilitaries. have a clue which one, One of the even gave free hot-air most memo- balloon rides in the rable adverts, centre of the city. It’s from 1992, still the only time I’ve used Ameri- been in a hot-air bal- can folk-rock loon. singer Harry That was almost Chapin’s mel- twenty years ago. I ancholic 1974 miss those days. I miss US number- them partly because one hit song I haven’t lived in about father– Northern Ireland for son separation, over a decade. I also ‘Cat’s in the miss the feeling of Cradle’, as its weightlessness as the soundtrack. The visuals show a young several years. It’s how I came to know conflict neared its end, the great relief, boy and his father in Belfast. The father Chapin’s song.) A voiceover always ended like the receding of a fever. But there’s is a paramilitary driver, and one day he these adverts, ofering the telephone also a strange nostalgia at work, and drives a man to a pub. The man walks number of the confidential anti-terrorist not just when I think of that battered inside, takes out an automatic weapon hotline, and urging people to call if they paperback novel; it is nostalgia for the and mows down several people in cold had any information. proximity of the conflict itself, at least as blood. The father is subsequently caught By contrast, the post-ceasefire, ‘Days long as it remained out at the fringes of and sent to prison. The young boy grows Like This’ advert showed kids running my being, threatening, but never quite up without a father and becomes a ter- under a sunset along a beach of rolling real. A bomb scare is so close in my mind rorist gunman himself. The advert ends dunes to Van’s soothing tones. Instead to a first kiss, the frisson of each shudders with the grown son shooting another of the nudging encouragement to call against the other. ◊ man dead in front of that man’s young the confidential hotline, the final frame

25 how it gets done RF: The metaphor of bottling the wind pertains to containment of a large thing in a small thing. I’ve just been finding it very Richard Ford difcult to economize with what I think is important in a way that is sufcient On the wide open prairie, the short American novel and how to freeze a notebook. to fit it all into a small novel. Too many things seem interesting to me; too many A while ago I met up with Richard Ford in a do in the South. There was a way in which things seem important to me. I’m prob- hotel in Bloomsbury. We sat in what could be Eudora Welty and Faulkner had reported ably more interested in words than I used described as the hotel’s conservatory, a room that on things that they knew. Everything I to be. I’m probably slightly less fright- housed a few pieces of wicker furniture. It was grew up knowing I either knew directly ened than I used to be as a writer, less deserted save for a few people who wandered from them or it was information that had frightened about failure than I used to be. through on their way back from breakfast. circulated around to me. Southerners are And I don’t think it’s necessarily a good Ford was born in 1944 in Jackson, Missis- great mythologizers about the South. And thing. So I would love to be able to write sippi. After writing two novels that fell out of that’s mostly what I heard. You know another Frank Bascombe novel, because print, he worked for a sports magazine, Inside about its eccentricity, about its dynamism, it’s one of the few truly joyous things I’ve Sports, until 1982. If the magazine hadn’t all these things which may or may not be ever got to do as a writer. But I have come folded, he told the Telegraph back in 2011, true, but I learned it from people who had to believe I either cannot do it, because it ‘I’d still be there and that would be just fine.’ already been on that ground. I had nothing would be long, or that I have to find a way Four years after leaving, he published The new. I couldn’t think of anything new to to make it about as long as that. Sportswriter, the first of his Frank Bascombe say. (He holds up the Maxwell book) trilogy, which also includes Independence Day and The Lay of the Land. 5D: Did the prairie seem like unknown 5D: That would be one way of solving it. During our morning meeting, Ford spoke space? with a drawl, a reminder that even though his RF: People have told me that they loved latest novel is called Canada, his voice is South- RF: Yes. It’s very hard though, you know, The Lay of the Land, but I came away from ern American. We’d agreed to talk about the because of people’s conventional notions that experience thinking it was too long. novel, but it became evident Ford also wanted of the prairie. Whenever I talk to people [The critic] Elizabeth Hardwick said that to talk about the country of the same name. I about the book, in Britain and Germany, Independence Day might be judged to be mentioned my relatives in Saskatchewan and he they say, ‘Well it’s really about alienation, longer than it should be. But for whom? asked me what sort of animals roamed their land. isn’t it? It’s really about these vast empty I have a sense of some innate propri- Were there a few Hungarian partridges? Were spaces.’ And I say, well, the prairie is vast ety about the length of a book, and how there a few sharp-tailed grouse? but it’s not empty. And to be on that prai- much I can expect of the reader, and so People often talk to me about moving to rie and to feel alone is not necessarily to it all works out. I would like to write a Canada. Ford was no diferent, though he’d been feel alienated. book about that length, let’s see how long gravitating towards the place for years, drawn to It’s very hard to rethread people’s this book is . . . the idea of the north, so I thought I’d start with received ideas and translate your experi- (He flicks through) the question asked of most potential emigrants. No, ence into a vocabulary that’s persuasive to … a hundred and thirty pages. Boy, that he replied. them. Because their sense of that whole would be crazy. I think the great Ameri- area – of course they’ve never been there can novel is the great American short RF: The winter doesn’t bother me at all. – but the whole sense of that area makes it novel. That’s what I think. It’s not, you Well, I’ve never experienced a winter up quite forbidding. know, The Adventures of Augie March. It’s there. I’ve experienced a winter in Great The Great Gatsby, So Long, See you Tomor- Falls. I’ve experienced a winter in Chinook, From my bag I bring out an old copy of a William row, or a couple of Salter’s short novels. Montana, which is east of Havre. I know it Maxwell book, So Long, See You Tomorrow, Aesthetically or intellectually it would be colder, but I don’t care. The win- which features on its cover a quote from Ford. He wouldn’t be a problem for me to write ter is what it is. picks up the book, recognizes it, tests its heft. another book, at whatever length it turned out to be. Physically I don’t want 5D: Have you laid claim to the Canadian 5D: In this quote, you talk about how it to do it. And we’re just talking about my prairies? would be great to write a short novel, how sense of lived life, and what I have to do it’s like bottling the wind, but . . . to write a long book. I just don’t want to RF: I took a little proprietary interest in it. do that again. I haven’t really truthfully I know it. Because I thought as a novelist RF: Didn’t work out, did it . . . (He reads wanted to do it for about ten years. But I you’re always looking for something you the blurb on the back of the book) I used to be don’t seem to be able to carry it of. can be the world’s greatest expert on. Not pretty good at writing those things. really, but at least in the terms you frame. 5D: You haven’t been able to refrain from It’s easier than being an expert on the 5D: Why is it so difcult? Why is it like writing a book? South. There really wasn’t anything I could bottling the wind?

26 RF: I haven’t wanted to write a long We’ll just wait you out on this.’ situations and listen to someone, and pay novel for a long time. But it hasn’t attention. worked out for me. But now, aged sixty- 5D: It seems the narrator is an indeter- eight going on sixty-nine in a couple of minate age in the first two sections, but RF: People will say the most remarkable months, I have to discipline myself if I’m in the third part the narrator seems to be things to you, if you just get out of their gonna do something short. I mean, I’ve older. His voice seems to carry the weight way and let them. It’s always been – I done it before. Wildlife isn’t very long, of knowledge and the sadness that can guess one of the reasons why I’ve been but when I read it now, I think to myself, only come at a certain age. sort of identified as being a listener is that Shit, why didn’t you write another sen- I long ago noticed that something about tence there? Why didn’t you account RF: Well, I didn’t feel so much the sad- me made people tell me things. And I for that? Why didn’t you say something ness but I understand how some reader realized if I’m always yapping, which more there? I remember when I was possibly could. It’s just the sadness that most people of course are, yapping all the writing Wildlife – and this is one of the tended to life getting toward its end. It time, that you don’t hear as much. You reasons why Canada is the kind of book it isn’t so much a sadness about what has know? It’s made me very resentful of is – the character who narrates Wildlife is happened in life. Dell uses the word people who talk too much. in a slightly similar situation. He’s going toward the end, ‘assent’, which I bor- of to school, and I wanted to be able to rowed from Seamus. I feel like when I 5D: Let’s talk about Frank Bascombe. If account for what he was doing at school. started writing that passage, when I just you introduce a character like him into I actually say in that book that he wanted went to write it from the beginning, I felt the world, are there always going to be to throw the javelin in school, and I don’t that my heart and my mind just kind of people on your back asking you to bring know, that seemed interesting to me. But went like ‘that’. him back? I couldn’t get it in, in any potent way. I I had been so focused down on just couldn’t make it plausible. I used to things, so rigidly controlling everything RF: I don’t think it is at all burdensome. love that book and I look at it now, and I that finally, I felt – you would almost Because if I felt like I didn’t want to do think, Well, this book’s kind of broken in say earned – the opportunity to write it, or couldn’t do it, for reasons that were a way because it doesn’t follow through whatever I wanted to. I didn’t even feel mine, I wouldn’t feel that I was missing on enough of the things that it needed to an obligation to look back to what the an opportunity. If I never wrote anything follow through on. novel had been up till then. I just thought, again at all I would feel that I had done a Whatever I want to write I can write. good job doing this. But I’ve always kind 5D: Can you identify those points in a of felt that way at the end of big projects, novel? 5D: It’s also cultural criticism. You get that everything in the whole enterprise, a sense of modern America. It’s a busy, the whole machinery, has to kind of RF: Yes, I can. So in the need I felt to noisy . . . grind down, so that I don’t just reflex- follow through on things that Wildlife did ively jump of into some new project, not follow through on, comes then Cana- RF: . . . exigent place. It’s beating on you you know. da, which follows through on everything. all the time. It’s not amplified beyond my Sometimes I think about writing about experience. I just feel like America beats Frank Bascombe again and I think about 5D: Was it important to separate Canada on you. And it just – it’s other people’s what I would have to be thinking about: into three parts? rights, it’s other people’s prerogatives. It’s Obama, the financial crisis … Jesus, that other people’s pursuits. There’s so much doesn’t interest me very much – oh, but RF: There’s a way in which Part Two conflict in America. There’s so much I love Obama, I voted for him, but he of Canada ends that is valedictory. In my exigence in America. There’s so much really profoundly doesn’t interest me. mind I knew what I wanted to do with disgruntledness in America. And some of You know? Part Three. So I never really thought, I it’s productive and a lot of it isn’t, but the can’t have Part Three. When I got to the efect on me – I wouldn’t even ever have 5D: A friend said that your Bascombe end of Part One, I was already a year late noticed it if there wasn’t a Canada in the books should be given to every woman with the book, and I showed it to my edi- world. Because I go across the border – who wants to understand men. They tor. I said, ‘Look, this is an unexpected and this isn’t maybe an experience shared seem to be a guide to masculinity. thought, but would you like to publish by Canadians – but when I go across the this by itself, just Part One, and then I’ll border. . .I wrote everything I thought in RF: I think that’s a thought of yours I write Part Two and you can publish it, the book. As Dell says at the end, some- don’t share. you can publish these things serially.’ I thing lifts of of me as I go across the was feeling kind of desperate about meet- border, and it’s something I want to lift 5D: Really? ing my publishing deadlines. Fortunately of of me. It’s that sense of leaving a fly- for me, he said no. He hadn’t at that in-the-bottle frenzy. RF: I basically don’t know anything point read anything of Part Two because about masculinity. I don’t credit mas- I probably hadn’t written it, but he said, 5D: I read something you said about culinity as even being a thing. I really ‘No, let’s don’t do that. Let’s don’t do that. listening, about how you can go into don’t. It’s a received notion to me that

27 just doesn’t have any suppleness, it doesn’t at a certain moment – maybe important, just ran through this bunch of crows and have any interest. You know, when you maybe not, but interesting. Then I have just massacred them. I wrote that down. I said that your friend thought it should be a chance to look at them all again and was waiting for a moment when I had a a book given to every woman, I think it decide if they really are interesting and use for it. should be a book given to every woman important. Sometimes they aren’t, so I just too, but not so she could learn about men, ignore them. Throw them away. But it 5D: Years later, these things can be revived. so she could learn about herself. I just means my books are always about a whole They can come alive again. wouldn’t write books about men. There’s bunch of things that I think are worth a line of Mavis Gallant’s. She says that if putting in a book. RF: They never go away if you write we knew what went on between women Sometimes it’s words that I want to them down. There’s a line of Ruskin’s and men, we wouldn’t need literature. see, like ‘Great Falls, Montana’. I see those that is quoted in Canada: composition is And I kinda go at it that way. I mean, I words on the page, or ‘independence’. the arrangement of unequal things. When write about men because maybe I knew a I wanted to see that word on the page. you forcibly fuse together, in language, little bit more about that side of the ledger Sometimes it’s events I want to have hap- bits of experience that hadn’t otherwise than I do about women, but it’s not just so pen. There’s a passage in Canada in which been afliated, you get some sort of men will read it. It’s really so that anybody Remlinger is driving Dell up to Leader, torque, you get some sort of power. It’s will read it. A book is about all of life, not Saskatchewan. There’s a bunch of pheas- sort of like the energy that exists within just about masculinity. any piece of artificial structure, a kind of energy that’s created by interdependent 5D: Do you read physical books? Do parts – I mean, sometimes when you’re you write in the margins? looking at a piece of architecture it’s an energy you can actually sense viscerally. RF: I tear pages out. When I see some- The best analogy is just a spring: what- thing that’s peculiarly ofensive I tear it ever is holding a spring open or closed is out and throw it away. a certain kind of energy. Forcibly putting together such things as words and non- 5D: I’d like to see some of the thinner afliated concepts. books on your shelf. 5D: It illuminates character convention- RF: I violate books. It’s what I do. ally, but that particular image has a dark- They’re mine, I can violate them. I ness to it too. hate that notion of books as sacred objects. RF: When I wrote it, I was so happy to be able to use it, but I thought, I wonder 5D: Do you use notebooks? if it still has the specific gravity that it used to have? It was always an image that RF: Absolutely. lived in my mind, as memorable, and terrible, and I thought, I wonder if I’m 5D: What kind of system do you have? not forcing this too much into this slot. I finally decided, Well, I’m not sure but I RF: My system is just that I write stuf don’t think so. That happens to me a lot. down in here, and then I store these things ants out in the road. He just drives right I think to myself, I’m not sure but I don’t away in the freezer in my house. through them, doesn’t slow down, just think so. keeps on and kills most of them. That’s 5D: In the freezer? been in my notebook since 1983. 5D: The intuitive nature of it all has to –

RF: I put things in the deep freeze. Then 5D: It’s been in the freezer that long? I eventually get ’em out. Maybe I’ll have RF: Has to hold sway. It does. twenty of these things, thirty. I’ll just sit RF: I’ve had it in there since 1983. I had down at the word processor and type out a friend who died in Mississippi who was 5D: How long does it take to defrost everything that I see in my notebooks I talking about her brother who was by that these notebooks? I like this image of you find still interesting, and at the end of that time dead. He became a methampheta- bringing out these frozen notebooks, period I begin to see the possibilities for a mine addict and died. This was one of the bringing them into the kitchen. book, a story or something. ways which she was trying to exemplify It is also a way of assuring myself that what a wild-ass sonofabitch her brother RF: Their integrity does not change I’m writing about the most important was. Not with pheasants but with crows, when you freeze them. It’s not like things I know. Because what I put in here I guess. Going down some long straight you have to defrost them. It’s not like a are things that I thought were interesting highway in the Mississippi Delta, and he chicken.

28 how to write a letter where dark men rape, swear gutturally, strike their women, kidnap their children, manipulate and lie and steal and abuse. Dear Beatrice Being sixteen, nineteen, twenty, thirty- two, and seeing the same one-dimensional Jonas Hassen Khemiri has a proposition for Sweden’s Minister of Justice characters being used over and over again. Being nine and deciding to become the (For more explanation, best read the Editor’s Letter.) class’s most studious nerd, the world’s big- gest brown-noser. Everything goes accord- Dear Beatrice Ask, we’ll borrow each other’s bodies. First I’ll ing to plan, and it’s only when we have There are a lot of things that make us be in your body to understand what it’s a substitute that someone automatically diferent. You were born in the mid fifties; like to be a woman in the patriarchal world assumes that we’re the class troublemaker. I was born in the late seventies. You are of politics. Then you can borrow my skin Being ten and being chased by skin- a woman; I’m a man. You’re a politician; to understand that when you go out into heads for the first, but not the last, time. I’m an author. But there are some things the street, down into the subway, into the They catch sight of our mutual body by we have in common. We’ve both studied shopping centre, and see the policeman the wino bench down by Högalidskyrkan, international economics (without graduat- standing there, with the law on his side, they roar, we run, we hide in a doorway, ing). We have almost the same hairstyle with the right to approach you and ask you the taste of blood in our mouth, our com- (even if our hair colour is diferent). to prove your innocence, it brings back mon heart beating like a rabbit’s all the way And we’re both full citizens of this memories. Other abuses, other uniforms, home. country, born within its borders, joined by other looks. And no, we don’t need to go Being eleven and reading cartoons language, flag, history, infrastructure. We as far back as Second World War Germany, where Orientals are mystically exotic, are both equal before the law. or South Africa in the eighties. Our recent beautifully brown-eyed, sensual (but also So I was surprised last Thursday when Swedish history is enough, a series of ran- deceitful). the radio programme P1 Morgon asked you dom experiences that our mutual body Being twelve and going into Mega Ski- whether, as the Minister of Justice, you are suddenly recalls. vakademien to listen to CDs, and every concerned that people (citizens, taxpayers, Being six years old and landing at time we go there the security guards circle voters) claim they have been stopped by Arlanda in our common homeland. We like sharks, talk into walkie-talkies and fol- the police and asked for ID solely because walk towards customs with a dad who has low us at a distance of only a few metres. of their (dark, non-blond, black-haired) sweaty hands, who clears his throat, who And we try to act normal, we strive to appearance, and you answered, ‘One’s fixes his hair and shines up his shoes on make our body language maximally non- experience of “why someone has ques- top of his knees. He checks twice that his criminal. Walk normally, Beatrice. Breathe tioned me” can of course be very personal. Swedish passport is in the correct inner as usual. Walk up to that shelf of CDs There are some who have been previously pocket. All the pink-coloured people are and reach for that Tupac album in a way convicted and feel that they are always let by. But our dad is stopped. And we that indicates you are not planning to steal being questioned, even though you can’t think, maybe it was by chance. Being ten it. But the security guards keep spying, tell by looking at a person that they have years old and seeing the same scene repeat and somewhere, way in here, deep in our committed a crime [. . .] In order to judge itself. Maybe it was his accent. Being mutual body, there’s probably a shame- whether the police are acting in accordance twelve and seeing the same scene. Maybe filled pleasure in getting a taste of that with laws and rules, one has to look at the it was his holey bag with the broken zipper. structure that entrapped our dad, in find- big picture.’ Being fourteen, sixteen, eighteen. ing an explanation for why our dad never Interesting choice of words, ‘previously Being seven and starting school and succeeded here, why his dream died in a convicted’. Because that’s exactly what being given an introduction to society by sea of returned letters of application. we are. All of us who are guilty until we a dad who was already, even then, terrified Being thirteen and starting to hang out prove otherwise. When does a personal that his outsiderness would be inherited at the youth centre and hearing stories. A experience become a structure of rac- by his children. He says, ‘When you look friend’s older brother who talked back to ism? When does it become discrimination, like we do, you must always be a thousand the Norrmalm police and was tossed into oppression, violence? And how can look- times better than everyone else if you don’t a police van and then dumped in Nacka ing at ‘the big picture’ rule out so many want to be denied.’ with a bloody nose. A friend’s cousin who personal experiences of citizens? ‘Why?’ was dragged into that little room on the I am writing to you with a simple ‘Because everyone is a racist.’ subway platform at Slussen and knocked request, Beatrice Ask. I want us to trade ‘Are you a racist?’ around by security (telephone books our skins and our experiences. Come on. ‘Everyone but me.’ against his thighs so it wouldn’t leave Let’s just do it. You’ve never been averse Because that’s exactly how racism bruises). Dad’s friend N who was found by to slightly wacky ideas (I still remember works. It is never part of our guilt, our his- a police patrol and locked up in the drunk your controversial suggestion that anyone tory, our dna. It’s always somewhere else, tank because he was slurring, and the who buys sex ought to be sent a notice in a never here, in me, in us. police didn’t notice until the next day that lavender envelope). For twenty-four hours Being eight and watching action films something was wrong, and in the ER they

29 found the aneurysm, and at his funeral his ‘How’s it going?’ He asked for ID and then one was just doing their job. The security girlfriend said, ‘If only they had called me, he pushed our arms up in a police grip guards, the police, the customs ofcials, the I could have told them that he didn’t drink and transported us towards the police van, politicians, the people. alcohol.’ where we were apparently supposed to And here you interrupt me and say, ‘But Being thirteen and a half and living in sit while waiting for him to receive con- why is it so difcult to understand? Every- a city besieged by a man with a rifle and firmation that we were who we said we one has to follow the law.’ And we answer, a laser sight, a person who shoots eleven were. Apparently we matched a description. ‘But what if the law is unlawful?’ black-haired men in seven months without Apparently we looked like someone else. And you say, ‘It’s all a matter of priorities, the police stepping in. And our mutual We sat in the police van for twenty min- and we just don’t have infinite resources.’ brain starts to think that it’s always the utes. Alone. But not really alone. Because a And we answer, ‘How come there’s always Muslims who have it worst, always those hundred people were walking by. And they money when those with few resources with Arabic names who have the least looked in at us with a look that whispered, are to be persecuted, but never money power (and completely represses the times ‘There. One more. Yet another one who when those with few resources are to be when other structures were in power – like is acting in complete accordance with our defended?’ when the guy in school whom everyone prejudices.’ And you say, ‘But how can we simulta- called ‘the Jew’ was chained to a fence by And I wish you had been with me in the neously combine a broad social safety net his jeans, with a lock through his belt loop, police van, Beatrice Ask. But you weren’t. I with welcoming everyone?’ And we shuf- and everyone just laughed when he tried to sat there alone. And I met all the eyes walk- fle our feet and clear our throats, because get loose; he laughed too, he tried to laugh; ing by and tried to show them that I wasn’t to be completely honest we don’t have a did we laugh?). guilty, that I had just been standing in a clear answer to that. But we know that a Being fourteen and coming out of place and looking a particular way. But it’s person can never be illegal and that some- McDonald’s on Hornsgatan and being hard to argue your innocence in the back thing must be done when uniforms spread asked for ID by two police ofcers. Being seat of a police van. insecurity and the law turns against its own fifteen and sitting outside an Expert store And it’s impossible to be part of a com- citizens, and now you’ve had enough, Bea- when a police van pulls up, two ofcers get munity when Power continually assumes trice Ask, you try to leave our body; just out, ask for ID, ask what’s up tonight. Then that you are an Other. like the readers, you think that this has gone they hop back into the van. After twenty minutes we were released on too long, it’s just a lot of repetition, it’s And all the time, a fight inside. One from the police van, no apology, no expla- not getting to the point, and you’re right, voice says, ‘They have no fucking right to nation. Instead: ‘You can go now.’ And our there’s never any end, there’s no solution, prejudge us. They can’t fucking cordon of adrenalin-pumping body left the place and no emergency exit, everything just keeps the city with their uniforms. They are for- our brain thought, ‘I ought to write about repeating, because the structures aren’t bidden to make us feel insecure in our own this.’ But our fingers knew that it wouldn’t going to disappear just because we vote neighbourhoods.’ happen. Because our experiences, Beatrice down reva; reva is a logical extension of But the other voice says, ‘What if it Ask, are nothing in comparison with what constant, low-intensity oppression, reva was our fault? We were probably talking happens to others; our body grew up on lives on in our inability to reformulate our too loudly. We were wearing hoodies and this side of customs, our mum is from set national self-image, and tonight in a bar sneakers. Our jeans were too big and had Sweden, our reality is like a cosy room full line near you, non-white people systemati- a suspicious number of pockets. We made of pillows in comparison with what hap- cally spread themselves out so as not to be the mistake of having a villainous hair pens to those who are truly without power, stopped by the bouncer, and tomorrow colour. We could have chosen to have less without resources, without papers. We are in your housing queue those with foreign melanin in our skin. We happened to have not threatened with deportation. We do not names are using their partners’ last names last names that reminded this small country risk imprisonment if we return. And in the so as not to be dropped, and just now, in that it is part of a larger world. We were knowledge that others have it much worse, a job application, a completely average young. Everything will definitely be difer- we chose silence instead of words and the Swede wrote ‘born and raised in ent when we get older.’ years went by and much later came the sweden’ in capital letters just because she And our mutual body grew, Beatrice Ask. introduction of reva, ‘the lawful and efec- knows what will happen otherwise. Eve- We stopped hanging at the youth centre, we tive implementation project’. The police ryone knows what will happen otherwise. replaced the hoodie with a black coat, the started searching through shopping centres But no one does anything. Instead we cap with a scarf. We stopped playing bas- and stood outside clinics that helped those focus on locating people who have moved ketball and started studying economics at without papers, and families with Swedish- here in search of the security that we’re so Handelshögskolan in Stockholm. One day born children were deported to countries proud of being able to ofer (some of ) our we were standing outside Central Station that the children had never been to, and citizens. And I write ‘we’ because we are a in Stockholm, jotting something down in Swedish citizens were forced to show their part of this whole, this societal body, this a notebook (because even though we were passports to prove they belonged, and a cer- we. studying economics we had a secret dream tain Minister of Justice explained that this You can go now. ◊ of becoming an author). had nothing to do with racial profiling but Suddenly someone came up on our rather ‘personal experiences’. The routines Translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson- right side, a broad man with an earpiece. of power. The practices of violence. Every- Broyles

30 THERE ARE NO SECRETS BETWEEN FRIENDS

COME TO THE CIRCLE

31 from the archive Zukhin was using. On the table were a decanter of vodka, a wine glass, bread, salt and a mutton bone. In a ‘Comradely’ Way Without getting up, Zukhin invited me to help myself to some vodka and Too much vodka may lead to military service. A sizeable excerpt from take of my frock coat. Leo Tolstoy’s Childhood, Boyhood, Youth. ‘You aren’t used to such fare, I think,’ he added. Childhood, Boyhood and Youth, the three too, and most of them aren’t comme il They were all wearing dirty calico completed sections of what was to be a four-part faut, which means that I’ll have another shirts and dickies. Trying not to show my series, follow the formative years of Nikolay advantage over them and will certainly disdain, I removed my coat and lay down Irtenyev, the son of aristocrats in eighteenth- pass.’ The only reason I even attended on the sofa in a ‘comradely’ way. Only century Russia. Nikolay’s encounters with the lectures was because I had got used to occasionally consulting the copybooks, class and love are reassuringly clumsy – the it, and Papa ordered me out of the house. Zukhin recited, while the others broke latter especially so. In one instance he falls for I also had many acquaintances at the uni- in with questions, which he answered a girl he had spoken to ‘once, and then only versity and often enjoyed myself there. I concisely, cleverly and exactly. I started with indescribable awe’. This was, he tells liked the noise and talk and laughter in to listen and, not understanding much, us, ‘the third time I fell in love that winter’. the lecture halls, and sitting on the rear since I didn’t know what had preceded it, One ‘afected conversation about the merits of bench during lectures and daydream- I asked a question. classical music’ later, and his love, ‘no mat- ing and observing my classmates with ‘You shouldn’t listen, old man, if you ter how hard I tried to sustain it, was gone the drone of the professor’s voice in the don’t know that,’ Zukhin said. ‘I’ll give the following week’. Most Five Dials readers background, or running of from time to you the copybooks and you can go over it will feel distanced from the roots of the story by time to Materne’s for vodka and a snack for tomorrow; otherwise, there’s no use time, geography and, for most of us, wealth but with someone, and then, aware that I explaining.’ we can still ofer Nikolay counsel. We know, could be rebuked for it, entering the lec- I started to feel ashamed of my igno- young man, how you feel. ture after the professor with a cautious rance, but feeling, too, that Zukhin’s While the trilogy follows Irtenyev’s journey squeak of the door. I also liked taking comment was fair, I stopped listening towards adulthood, it also reflects the early part in pranks as one boisterous class after and occupied myself with observing development of Tolstoy’s own social conscience. another filled the hallways. It was all those new comrades. In the subdivision Between 1843 and 1847 Tolstoy fumbled his great fun. of people into comme il faut and not comme way through four years at university in Kazan, When everyone started coming to lec- il faut they belonged, obviously, to the first studying Oriental languages and then tures more regularly, and the physics pro- second category, and as a result provoked law, before returning home without a degree. fessor had concluded his course and taken not only disdain to me, but also a cer- Likewise, in Youth, Irtenyev flunks his first leave of us until the examination, and the tain resentment, since even though they year at university. But in doing so he befriends students had collected their copybooks weren’t comme il faut, they still seemed a group of poorer students from whom he devel- and begun to study in small groups, I to regard me as an equal and even to ops an awareness of – and admiration for – the sensed that I, too, should be studying. patronize me in a good-natured way. The ‘wild’ and ‘generous’ lives of those outside of his Operov, with whom I remained on bow- disdain was in reaction to their feet and wealthy family’s estate. ing terms, even though our relations had dirty hands and chewed fingernails, the —paul tucker been very cool, not only ofered to share long nail Operov had let grow on his his copybooks but also invited me to little finger, their pink shirts and dick- new comrades study with him and some other students, ies, the abuse which they afectionately The winter had passed imperceptibly, as I’ve mentioned. I expressed my thanks directed at one another, the filthy room, the thaw had come and the examination and agreed to do so, hoping by that hon- Zukhin’s habit of constantly blowing his schedule had already been posted, when I our to smooth over our earlier rift com- nose while pressing one nostril with his suddenly remembered that I would have pletely, and asking only that they be sure finger, but especially their speech, their to answer about the eighteen subjects for each time to come to my house, since I way of using and stressing certain words. which I had gone to lectures without lis- had good rooms. For instance, they would say ‘cretin’ tening, taking notes or preparing a single Their answer was that we would take instead of ‘fool’, ‘as though’ instead of ‘as one. It’s strange that a question as obvi- turns, studying first at one person’s place if ’, ‘magnificent’ instead of ‘excellent’, ous as how I would pass my examinations and then at another’s, and wherever was ‘propulsive’ instead of ‘driving’, and the never occurred to me. But I was in such closer. The first time was at Zukhin’s, like, which seemed uncouth and bookish a fog that whole winter from my delight a little room behind a partition in a to me. But that comme il faut resentment at being grown up and comme il faut that large building on Trubnoy Boulevard. I was provoked even more by the stress when the question of how I would pass arrived late that first day after they had they gave to certain Russian and espe- finally did occur to me, I compared already begun to read. The little room cially foreign words; they said ‘máchine’ myself to my classmates and thought, was filled with smoke, and not even from and not ‘machíne’, ‘enterprísing’ and ‘Well, they’ll have to take examinations, decent tobacco, but from the cheap shag not ‘énterprising’, ‘íntentionally’ and not

32 ‘inténtionally’, ‘firepláce’ and not ‘fíre- brother,’ he added, boastfully tapping important to me: it seemed to me that I place’, ‘Shakespéare’ and not ‘Shákespeare’, himself on the forehead. ‘Semyonov’s the was involuntarily insulting them with the and so on and so forth. one who ought to worry, since he’s been signs of my wealth. I felt guilty around However, despite their insurmountably drinking pretty hard.’ them and, first abasing myself and then repellent appearance for me then, I did It was, in fact, the same Semyonov with chafing at the unfairness of it and shift- have a sense of something good in those the grey hair who had cheered me at the ing to arrogance, I couldn’t in any way people and, envying the merry camarade- first examination by looking worse than enter into equal, sincere relations with rie that united them, I was drawn to them I did, and who had been ranked second them. And the rough, profligate side of and wanted to be closer to them, as hard in the entrance examinations. In the first Zukhin’s character was at the time so muf- as it was for me. The meek, honest Oper- month of his studenthood he had faith- fled for me by the strong poetry of daring ov I already knew, but I now took an fully come to all the lectures, but then just I sensed in him that it didn’t afect me extraordinary liking to the lively, excep- before the beginning of the review period unpleasantly at all. tionally clever Zukhin, who was evident- he had started to drink, and by the end of For the next two weeks I went almost ly the leader of the circle. He was a short, the term he was no longer to be seen at every evening to Zukhin’s to study with stocky brunet with a slightly plump and the university at all. them. I studied very little, because, as I’ve always shiny but extraordinarily clever, ‘Where is he?’ someone asked. already said, I had fallen behind and, not animated and independent face, whose ‘I’ve lost track,’ Zukhin replied. ‘The having the strength to work by myself to expression came mainly from the not last I saw of him was when he and I tore catch up with them, I only pretended to high but prominent brow that extended up the Lisbon together. That was a mag- listen to and understand what they were over his deep-set dark eyes, his short bris- nificent thing! And then there was some reading. I think they saw through my dis- tly hair and his heavy dark beard, which incident, apparently. What a brain! What sembling, since I noticed that they often always looked unshaven. He appeared not fire in the fellow! What an intellect! It left out the parts they themselves already to think about himself (which I’ve always will be a pity if he fails. But fail he cer- knew and never asked me any questions. especially liked in people), but it was clear tainly will, since with his urges he’s not Drawn into their way of life and that his mind was always engaged. He had the kind to stick around the university.’ finding so much in it that was poetic, I one of those expressive faces that a few After talking a while longer and became more tolerant of the uncouthness hours after you’ve first seen them will all agreeing to meet the following days at of that circle with each passing day. Only of a sudden take on a completely diferent Zukhin’s, since his place was the closest my word of honour to Dmitry not to go cast. That happened to me with Zukhin for everyone, we went our separate ways. drinking with them kept me from taking towards the end of the evening. New lines When we were outside, it embarrassed me part in their pleasures. appeared in his face, his eyes sank deeper, a little that the rest of them were walking, Once I wanted to boast to them of my his smile changed and his whole aspect while I alone had a droshky, so I sheep- knowledge of literature, especially French was so altered that it was hard for me to ishly ofered Operov a ride. Zukhin had literature, and started a conversation recognize him as the same person. come outside with us and, after borrow- on the topic. To my surprise, it turned After we had finished reading, Zukhin, ing a silver rouble from Operov, went of out that although they used the Russian the other students and I each drank a glass somewhere by himself to spend the night. titles of the foreign works, they had read of vodka in proof of our wish to become As we were driving, Operov told me a lot a great deal more than I had, and knew comrades and almost completely emptied about Zukhin’s character and way of life, and appreciated English and even Span- the decanter. Zukhin asked if anyone and after I got home I lay awake a long ish authors and Lesage, whom I hadn’t had a twenty-five kopek piece, so the old time thinking about my new acquaint- even heard of before that. Pushkin and woman who looked after him could go ances. Before falling asleep, I wavered a Zhukovsky were literature for them and out for more. I ofered my own money, long time between, on the one hand, the not, as they were for me, books in yellow but Zukhin, as if not hearing me, turned respect to which their knowledge, sim- bindings read and learned in childhood. to Operov, who got out a beaded coin plicity, honesty and the poetry of their They held Dumas, Sue and Féval in purse and gave him the required sum. youth and daring inclined me, and on the equally low regard, and judged literature ‘Watch out you don’t start drinking,’ other, their uncouth appearance, which much better and more clearly than I said Operov, who hadn’t drunk anything repelled me. For all my desire to do so, it did, especially Zukhin, as I couldn’t help himself. was at the time simply impossible for me admitting. I had no advantage over them ‘Have no fear,’ Zukhin answered, suck- to be close to them. We had a completely in my knowledge of music, either. To my ing the marrow from the mutton bone. I diferent understanding of things. There even greater surprise, Operov played the remember thinking then, ‘The reason he’s were numerous nuances that constituted violin, another student studying with us so clever is that he eats lots of marrow.’ the whole charm and meaning of life for played the cello and the piano, and both ‘Have no fear,’ Zukhin said again with a me, but that were completely unintel- of them were members of the university little smile, and his smile was the kind that ligible to them and vice versa. The main orchestra and had a respectable knowl- you involuntarily notice and are grateful reason for the impossibility of intimacy, edge and appreciation of good music. In for, ‘although if I should, it won’t be a dis- however, was the twenty-rouble cloth of a word, except for my pronunciation of aster. But now we’ll see, brother, who gets my frock coat, my droshky and my fine French and German, everything that I the better of whom, he or I. It’s all in here, linen shirt. That reason was especially had intended to boast to them about they

33 knew better than I, and weren’t conceited One evening just after we had all gath- for the faint illumination of a few bright about it at all. I might have boasted of my ered at Zukhin’s, and Operov had placed lamps, with bunks along either side on position in society, but unlike Volodya I a tallow candle in a bottle next to himself which new recruits with shaven foreheads had none. So what was the pinnacle from to go with one already there in a can- were sitting or lying in grey overcoats. I which I regarded them? My acquaintance dlestick, and then lowered his head over had been struck on entering the barracks with Prince Ivan Ivanych? My pronuncia- the minuscule handwriting in his physics by a particularly oppressive smell and by tion of French? My droshky? My fine lin- copybook and begun to read in his little the sound of several hundred men snor- en shirt? My fingernails? Wasn’t it all just thin voice, the landlady came in to tell ing, and, as we crossed the room between rubbish? Or so it dimly began to seem Zukhin that someone was there with a the bunks behind our guide and Zukhin, to me under the influence of my envy of message for him. who with a firm stride went on ahead, I the camaraderie and good-natured youth- Zukhin went out and quickly returned peered anxiously at each recruit, apply- ful merriment I saw before me. They with a thoughtful expression on his face ing what remained in my memory of the were all on familiar terms. The simplicity and two ten-rouble notes in his hand, hardy, solidly built figure of Semyonov of their treatment of each other verged along with the opened message written with his long, almost grey hair, white on rudeness, yet always apparent beneath on grey wrapping paper. teeth and sombre, gleaming eyes. In the that rough exterior was a fear of ofend- ‘Gentlemen! An extraordinary event!’ furthest corner of the barracks near the ing each other even a little. ‘Scoundrel’ or he said, raising his head and looking at us last little clay pot filled with oil in which ‘swine’, although used by them in an afec- with something like a triumphantly seri- a charred and twisted wick dimly smoked, tionate way, only grated on me and gave ous gaze. Zukhin quickened his pace and then sud- me a pretext for inward scofng, but the ‘Did you get some tutoring money?’ denly stopped. words didn’t ofend them or keep them Operov asked as he leafed through his ‘Hello, Semyonov,’ he said to a recruit from being on the friendliest and most copybook. with a shaven forehead like the oth- sincere footing. They were very tactful ‘Let’s get on with the reading,’ some- ers, who was sitting in heavy soldier’s and circumspect in their treatment of one else said. long underwear with a grey overcoat each other, as only happens with the very ‘No, gentlemen! No more reading for over his shoulders and his feet on the poor and the very young. But the main me,’ Zukhin continued in the same tone. bunk, while talking to another recruit thing was the sense I had of something ‘I tell you, it’s an inconceivable event! and eating something. It was him with generous and wild in Zukhin’s character, Semyonov has sent a soldier with twenty his hair cropped short and his forehead and in his adventures at the Lisbon. I had roubles he borrowed from me once, and shaved blue, yet with the same sombre, an intimation that those bouts had been written that if I want to see him, I had energetic expression that his face always quite diferent from the humbug with the better come to the barracks. Do you real- had. Afraid that my staring might ofend flaming rum and champagne that I had ize what this means?’ he added, looking him, I looked away. Operov, seeming to witnessed at Baron Z.’s. at each of us in turn. We were all silent. share my opinion, stood behind everyone ‘I’m going over to see him right now,’ else, but the sound of Semyonov’s voice zukhin and semyonov Zukhin continued. ‘Anyone who wants and of his customary clipped speech as [ . . . ] At the beginning of the year there to can come along.’ he greeted Zukhin and the others put us had been eight or so in Zukhin’s band We immediately put our frock coats completely at ease, and we hurried for- of revellers. Among them were Ikonin back on and got ready to visit Semyonov. ward to extend – I my hand, and Operov and Semyonov, but the first withdrew ‘Won’t it be awkward,’ Operov asked in his ‘little board’, but as we were doing because he couldn’t tolerate the frantic his thin little voice, ‘if we all barge in and that, Semyonov reached out with his revelry to which they devoted themselves, stare at him like some curiosity?’ own large, dark hand, thereby sparing us while the second left because it seemed I completely agreed with Operov’s the unpleasant feeling of seeming to do insufcient to him. Everyone regarded observation, especially as it concerned me, him an honour. He spoke reluctantly and them with something like awe and told since I was barely associated with Semy- calmly, as always. each other stories about their escapades. onov, but it was a pleasure to know that ‘Hello, Zukhin. Thanks for coming. Sit The escapades’ main heroes were I was taking part in a shared comradely down, gentlemen! Let them, Kudryash- Zukhin and, towards the end of the year, activity, and I so wanted to see Semyonov ka,’ he said to the recruit with whom he Semyonov. Everyone eventually came himself that I didn’t say anything. had been having supper and talking. ‘You to look on the latter even with a kind ‘Rubbish!’ Zukhin said. ‘What’s so and I will finish our conversation later. of horror, and when he turned up at the awkward about going to say goodbye to Go ahead and sit down. So, you were sur- lectures, which happened infrequently a comrade, wherever he might be? It’s prised Zukhin? Eh?’ enough, there was excitement in the nothing. Anyone who wants can come.’ ‘Nothing you’ve ever done has sur- room. We hired cabs, put the soldier in with prised me,’ Zukhin answered, sitting Semyonov ended his drinking career us and set of. The duty non-commis- beside him on the bunk with an expres- just before the examinations in a most sioned ofcer didn’t want to let us in, but sion rather like that of a doctor sitting energetic and original way, as I myself somehow Zukhin persuaded him, and down on the bed of a patient, ‘although I witnessed, thanks to my acquaintance the soldier who had brought the mes- would have been if you had turned up for with Zukhin. Here’s what happened. sage led us to a large room, dark except the examinations – that I can say. Well,

34 tell us where you went of to, and how slavl, you know, on Stozhenka, with firm grip, and without getting up to see this all came about.’ some merchant gent. He was a recruit us out he said, ‘Come again sometime, ‘Where did I go of to?’ Semyonov supplier. I said, “Give me a thousand rou- gentlemen. They say they won’t move answered in his deep, strong voice. ‘I bles and I’ll go.” And I did.’ us out until next month,’ he added, once went of to the taverns, pot-houses and ‘But how could that be? You’re a noble- more seeming to smile. inns, for the most part. Sit down, gentle- man,’ Zukhin said. Zukhin moved a few steps away, then men, all of you, there’s plenty of room. ‘That was nothing! Kirill Ivanov made turned back. Wanting to see their parting, Pull your legs up there, you!’ he yelled the arrangements.’ I stopped, too, and saw Zukhin take some commandingly, revealing his white teeth ‘Who’s Kirill Ivanov?’ money out of his pocket and ofer it, but for an instant, at a recruit who was lying ‘The one who brought me,’ he said Semyonov pushed his hand away. Then I on the bunk to his left and watching us with a strange, amused, mocking glint saw them embrace and heard Zukhin say with idle curiosity, his hands behind his in his eyes, and what looked like a smile. quite loudly as he came back towards us, head. ‘Well, I was on a spree. A bad one. ‘They got permission from the Senate. I ‘Farewell, Wizard! It’s certain I won’t fin- But good,’ he continued, each clipped had another spree, paid of my debts and ish the year, but you’ll be an ofcer.’ sentence changing the expression on his went. That’s all there is to it. After all, Semyonov, who never laughed, energetic face. ‘You know about the inci- they can’t flog me . . . I’ve got five roubles responded with loud, ringing laughter dent with the merchant. The rascal died. left . . . Perhaps there’ll be a war . . .’ that struck me extraordinarily painfully. They wanted to kick me out. What little And then with a sombre gleam in his We left. money I had, I squandered. But all that eyes and a constantly changing expres- The whole way home, which we would have been nothing. A huge pile of sion on his energetic face, he started to walked, Zukhin remained silent and kept debts remained – and nasty ones. I had no tell Zukhin about his strange, incompre- lightly blowing his nose, putting his way to pay them. Well, that’s it.’ hensible adventures. finger first to one nostril and then to the ‘How did you ever come up with such When they wouldn’t let us stay in the other. When we arrived at his place he an idea?’ Zukhin asked. barracks any longer, we began to say our immediately left us, and drank from that ‘This way: I was on a spree at the Yaro- goodbyes. He shook all our hands with a day until the examinations began. ◊

food and drink Breakfast with Nabokov (The Most Delicious Meal Known to Man) By Richard Godwin

nyone who reads Vladimir chapter. Not that the reader is thinking ture in the fourth wall with his parenthe- ANabokov’s 1928 novel King, Queen, about these irrelevances! Not when we ses to make the not-uncontroversial claim Knave on an empty stomach finds their have, in front of us, ‘the most delicious that there is in fact no better meal than a hunger pangs most acute in chapter four. meal known to man’, or, to be precise, soft-boiled egg on buttered toast? The novel, which Nabokov wrote in his ‘(the most delicious meal known to man)’. The use of parentheses (brackets) is native Russian as Korol’ Dama Valet, is Nabokov repeatedly told his students to of course one of the most characteristic about a love triangle involving a bour- ‘cherish the details’ after all. features of Nabokov’s prose. Certainly, geois couple, Dreyer and Martha, and a To cherish – and to question. Is a soft- it is among the most imitated. As Craig myopic young man called Franz. ‘Of all boiled egg with buttered toast indeed Raine once noted in an admiring essay my novels, this bright brute shines the worthy of this accolade? Which author- on the subject, Nabokov used the device gayest,’ Nabokov wrote upon translating ity is making this remarkable claim? ‘to contain an explosion of observation, it into English in 1968 – and one detail And, actually, why? Is this a form of style a detonation of descriptive assets, an shines gayest of all. indirect libre – the author filtering his nar- extra intense transaction of linguistic ‘In the morning, as Dreyer was hur- ration through the mind of his character? energy’. The classic instance occurs in riedly enjoying a soft-boiled with but- Which is to ask: is this Dreyer thinking to Lolita (1955), where the paedophile narra- tered toast (the most delicious meal himself: ‘Yum! I’d take a humble boiled tor Humbert Humbert informs us: ‘My known to man), before dashing of to egg and toast over anything a fancy chef very photogenic mother died in a freak the emporium, Frieda informed him that could cook up, any day of the week!’ And accident (picnic, lightning) when I was the repaired car was waiting at the door.’ if so, what does this tell us about Dreyer? three.’ Relating such a momentous event Frieda is the maid, by the way, and the Or is this Nabokov himself, addressing as the violent death of a mother in such a car has been damaged in the previous the reader directly, making a little aper- casual way is, here, a masterful flourish of

35 black humour. And yet Nabokov just as some sort of pumpernickel, given the Speak, Memory, he evokes the misery of readily used his parentheses to delight, as German setting? Was it cut into soldiers? icy mornings in college where water in Laughter in the Dark (1933): ‘Irma play- How runny was the egg? Did Dreyer sea- would freeze in his sink, while in his ing with glass marbles (a rainbow in every son it with salt and pepper? Poor Dreyer novel Glory he considers English nature as one)’. He was still using the technique having to abandon this humble feast! It is having a ‘tame greenhouse quality’ where in his last novel, the unfinished – barely an irresistible prompt to get up and boil a ‘unimaginative autumns faded away in started – The Original of Laura (published compensatory egg of one’s own, leaving geometrical gardens under a drizzly sky’. posthumously in 2009): ‘First of all she the novel to slowly creep of the table and Disappointing, to an English reader. Still, dismissed Cora with the strelitzias (hate- fall limply to the floor. he did take two things from his English ful blooms, regalized bananas, really)’. Nabokov is waiting in the kitchen. It years. He liked to play football – he kept With a writer as controlled and con- should scarcely surprise us that Nabokov goal for his college – and he did like the trolling as Nabokov, it feels as if these are was very particular about his eggs, and English breakfast. Might we hope that it pieces of information he simply had to left us his own recipe for them. A charm- was here he began his lifelong romance impart – a word he had to define, qualify ing addition to the small canon of recipes with bacon, which is not common in or modulate, a detail he had to admire, written by great writers, ‘Eggs à la Nabo- Russia? distort or interpret. Raine suggests that coque’ was composed on 18 November ‘The Potato Elf ’ would suggest so. A Nabokov writes the details into these 1972, meaning it falls between Transparent cruel and melancholy tale, it centres on slim crescents ecstatically, even eroti- Things (1972) and Look at the Harlequins! a performing dwarf named Fred, who cally, comparing him to a singer who has (1974) in the oeuvre. The prose is, of is kept in the semi-abusive employ of a learned to use his adrenalin to augment course, laden with parentheses and a little conjuror named Shock. When Fred is his performance. These are eruptions of rough – ‘Hold [the eggs] under the hot injured one day, Shock takes him home descriptive passion – the writer’s equiva- tap water to make them ready for what for the night, where Fred is nursed to lent of the bluesman’s ‘Ah! A-hum! Oh awaits them,’ he advises – though it is bed by Shock’s kindly wife, Nora. I yeah!’ – artfully harmonized with the likely that he did not revise his recipe would like to think it is with an olfactory whole. quite so assiduously as he did his novels. fondness for a certain kind of English That suggests that the King, Queen, I also posit that ‘Eggs à la Nabokoeuf ’ morning that Nabokov describes Fred Knave outburst is spontaneous – perhaps would have been a better pun. Still, his waking up, happy to have received such Nabokov was simply feeling peckish advice is sound. He underlines the funda- kindness from Nora the night before. between the pencil strokes? That does not mental importance of buying fresh eggs; ‘Around half-past seven the flat came to fully account for the godly certainty with he specifies two per person; he recom- life. With an abstract smile Mr Shock left which he makes the claim, the teasing mends 200–240 seconds of boiling time; for an unknown destination. From the hint that there are other, more delicious and he provides an answer (parenthetical- dining room came the delicious smell of meals, but they are unknown to mere ly!) to the King, Queen, Knave bread rid- bacon and eggs. (It is worth dwelling for men. Moreover, this is not the only egg- dle: ‘Have some salt and buttered bread a moment on the masculine/feminine based parentheses in his work. In 1969, (white) ready. Eat.’ He even finds room symbolism of this famous food coupling, Nabokov submitted to answer a few ques- for a delightful little simile. A cracked bacon the salty bridegroom, eggs the ooz- tions posed by Vogue magazine, posting egg, he warns, will ‘disgorge a cloud of ing bride.) With her hair done anyhow, back his answers. ‘As a human specimen, white stuf like a medium in an oldfash- wearing a kimono embroidered with sun- I present no particular fascination,’ he ioned [sic] séance.’ flowers, appeared Mrs Shock.’ wrote. ‘My habits are simple, my tastes In the 200–240 seconds that it takes Again the reader is tempted to throw banal. I would not exchange my favorite for the egg to boil, the reader may wish down the book and make himself some fare (bacon and eggs, beer) for the most to range among Nabokov’s other fiction bacon and eggs – but this time, it is worth misspelt menu in the world.’ This repeat- for his other references to breakfast. He reading on to discover the erotic connota- ed plugging of breakfast foods begins to or she will find a tantalizing one in the tions of the repast. After he has finished look systematic, almost a form of propa- short story, ‘The Potato Elf ’ (1929), in his breakfast, Fred is ofered a ‘perfumed ganda (prop-egg-anda?). But despite these which not only eggs but also bacon plays cigarette with a red petaled tip’ by Nora clues, the vital significance of breakfast to a fleeting but essential role. The tale is Shock. There follows the happiest event Nabokov and to his fiction seems to have unique among Nabokov’s fiction in hav- in Fred’s life: Nora seduces him. ‘Every eluded his scholars. ing an exclusively English setting. Hav- separate day in the year is a gift presented Meanwhile, back in Berlin, Dreyer ing fled Russia following the Bolshevik to only one man – the happiest one; gulps down his cofee and goes out to Revolution, the Nabokov family lived all other people use his day, to enjoy look at the car. ‘He sipped up the last, as émigrés in England between 1919 and the sunshine or berate the rain, never sweet drop, threw his napkin on the table 1922, before moving to Prague and then knowing, however, to whom that day and hurried out; the napkin slowly crept Berlin. During this time, young Vladimir really belongs; and its fortunate owner is of the table and fell limply to the floor.’ studied Slavonic Languages at Cambridge. pleased and amused by their ignorance.’ The hungry reader might be forgiven Mourning the homeland to which he For Fred, the happiest day of his life for dwelling on the abandoned breakfast. would never return, he did not much began with the smell of bacon and eggs. Was Dreyer’s bread white, brown, or even warm to the new setting. In his memoir, Even if successive generations of schol-

36 ars have blundered past these clues, the he finds that one of his marital duties is already stealing it. At what time of day film director Stanley Kubrick seems to is to bring Charlotte breakfast in bed. do she and Humbert consummate their have been alive to them. In his film ver- Charlotte is not a consumer of bacon or relationship? First thing in the morning, sion of Lolita, made in 1962, he clearly even eggs in the morning. Instead Hum- of course. responded to the erotic bacon theme. bert derisively delivers ‘that economi- There is time, before the egg turns At the height of their mutual flirtation, cally halved grapefruit, that sugarless hard boiled, to repeat the King, Queen, Lolita, played by Sue Lyon, brings James breakfast’. This drab meal is reprised even Knave passage. ‘In the morning, as Dreyer Mason’s Humbert his breakfast tray. She more ridiculously in the campus comedy, was hurriedly enjoying a soft-boiled with eats the bacon from his plate. ‘Don’t tell Pnin (1957): ‘Over a frugal breakfast of buttered toast’ . . . The clue lies in that mother I ate your bacon,’ she says. Hum- oranges and lemons Laurence, blond- ‘hurriedly’. Dreyer’s thoughts are dashing bert, entranced, does not. Nabokov sin- ish, baldish, and unwholesomely fat, towards his day. He is failing to give suf- gled out this scene when he praised Sue was criticizing the head of the French ficient attention to his eggs. He is failing Lyon’s performance. How could he not? Department . . .’ In both cases, it is both to give sufcient attention to his wife, Even if the scene does not appear in an indictment and a punishment. For too. Cherish the details, Nabokov says. the novel – nor in Nabokov’s original who eats citrus fruit for breakfast, but But while the reader cherishes the eggs, film script – it does have its shadow. joyless, fat people? Charlotte’s economi- Dreyer is guilty of neggligence. By the After Humbert has resigned himself to cal and sugarless grapefruit underlines time that Martha and Franz are plotting marrying Lolita’s despised mother Char- how she has closed herself of from quo- his murder (boating lake, oar), we have lotte Haze, to be close to her daughter, tidian sensual pleasure. Lolita, meanwhile, learned to cherish our eggs. ◊

bonus fiction Twilight of the Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg nathaniel recalls the miracle purely personal ones like birthdays or anniversa- ized, were not equipped to understand that at ries, remind us that the world is full of terrifying the conclusion of 1999 time would not start over The grandchildren approach. surprises and no one knows what even the very from 1900, time would keep goiPeople all over Nathaniel can make them out dimly next second will bring! America – all over the world! – began to speak in the shadows. When it’s time, he’ll tell Well, shortly before the momentous day, a of ‘a crisis of major proportions’ (which was a them about the miracle. strange news item appeared: experts were saying phrase we used to use back then). Because, all It was the dawn of the new millennium, that a little mistake had been made – just one the routine operations that we’d so blithely del- he’ll say. I was living in the Midwest back then, tiny mistake, a little detail in the way computers egated to computers, the operations we all took but my friends from college persuaded me to everywhere had been programmed. But the con- for granted and depended on – how would they come to New York. sequences of this detail, the experts said, were proceed? I arrived a few days ahead of the amazing potentially disastrous; tiny as it was, the detail Might one be fatally trapped in an elevator? occasion, and all over the city there was an might afect everybody, and in a very big way! Would we have to huddle together for warmth atmosphere of feverish anticipation. The year You see, if history has anything to teach us, and scrabble frantically through our pockets for two thousand! The new millennium! Some it’s that – despite all our eforts, despite our best a pack of fancy restaurant matches so we could people thought it was sure to be the end of the (or worst) intentions, despite our touchingly set our stacks of old New York Reviews ablaze? world. Others thought we were at the threshold indestructible faith in our own foresight – we Would all the food rot in heaps out there on the of something completely new and better. The poor humans cannot actually think ahead; there highways, leaving us to pounce on fat old street tabloids carried wild predictions from celebrity are just too many variables. And so, when it rats and grill them over the flames? What was clairvoyants, and even people who scofed and comes down to it, it always turns out that no going to happen to our bank accounts – would said that the date was an arbitrary and mean- one is in charge of the things that really matter. they vaporize? And what about air trafc con- ingless one were secretly agitated. In short, we It must be hard for you to imagine – it’s even trol? On 31 December when the second hand were suddenly aware of ourselves standing there, hard for me to remember – but people hadn’t moved from 11:59:59 to midnight, would all the staring at the future blindfolded. been using computers for very long. As far as I aeroplanes in the sky collide? I suppose, looking back on it, that all the know, my mother (your great-grandmother) Everyone was thinking of more and more commotion seems comical and ridiculous. And never even touched one! And no one had alarming possibilities. Some people committed perhaps you’re thinking that we churned it up thought to inform the computers that one day their last night on this earth to partying, and to entertain ourselves because we were bored or the universe would pass from the years of the one others rushed around buying freeze-dried pro- because our lives felt too easy – trivial and mun- thousands into the years of the two thousands. visions and cases of water and flashlights and dane. But consider: ceremonial occasions, even So the machines, as these experts suddenly real- radios and heavy blankets in the event that the

37 disastrous problem might somehow eventually ‘I’m here,’ Lucien said. ‘Well, it’ll be good the terrace had been like looking down be solved. to see you again. But steel yourself for a over the rim into a gigantic glass of cham- And then, as the clock ticked its way through wait at customs; they’re fingerprinting.’ pagne. the enormous gatherings in celebration of the era that was due to begin in a matter of hours, view uncle lucien’s words of assurance then minutes, then seconds, we waited to learn Mr Matsumoto’s loft is a jungle of big So, Matsumoto is returning. And Lucien the terrible consequences of the tiny oversight. rubbery trees, under which crouch sleek has called Nathaniel, the nephew of his Khartoum, Budapest, Paris – we watched on items of chrome and leather. Spindly adored late wife, Charlie, to break the television, our hearts fluttering, as midnight, electronic devices blink or warble amid news. first just a tiny speck in the east, unfurled gently, the foliage, and here and there one comes Well, of course it’s hardly a catastrophe darkening the sky and moving towards us over upon an immense flat-screen TV – the for the boy. Matsumoto’s place was only the globe. first of their kind that Nathaniel ever a sublet in any case, and Nathaniel and his But the amazing thing, Nathaniel will tell handled. friends will all find other apartments. his grandchildren, was that nothing happened! Nathaniel and his friends have been But it’s such an ordeal in this city. And We held our breath . . . And there was noth- subletting – thanks, obviously, to Uncle all four of the young people, however ing! It was a miracle. Over the face of the earth, Lucien – for a ridiculously minimal rent diferent they might be, strike Lucien as from east to west and back again, nothing cata- and on Mr Matsumoto’s highly toler- being in some kind of holding pattern – strophic happened at all. able conditions of catsitting and general as if they’re temporizing, or mufed by upkeep. Nathaniel and Lyle and Amity unspoken reservations. Of course, he Oh, well. Frankly, by the time he or and Madison each have something like doesn’t really know them. Maybe it’s just any of his friends get around to produc- an actual bedroom, and there are three the eternal, poignant weariness of youth. ing a grandchild (or even a child, come whole bathrooms, one equipped with to think of it) they might well have to a Jacuzzi. The kitchen, stone and steel, The strangest thing about getting old (or explain what computers had been. And has cupboards bigger than most of their one of the many strangest things) is that freeze-dried food. And celebrity clairvoy- friends’ apartments. Art – important, young people sometimes appear to Luc- ants and aeroplanes and New York and soon to be important or very recently ien – as, in fact, Sharmila does at this very America and even cities, and heaven only important, most of which was acquired moment – in a nimbus of tender light. It’s knows what. from Uncle Lucien – hangs on the walls. as if her unrealized future were projecting And the terrace! One has only to open outward like ectoplasm. frogboil the magic sliding panel to find oneself ‘Doing anything entertaining this Lucien watches absently as his assistant, halfway to heaven. On the evening, over evening?’ he asks her. Sharmila, prepares to close up the gallery three years ago, when Uncle Lucien com- She sighs. ‘Time will tell,’ she says. for the evening; something keeps tugging pleted the arrangements for Nathaniel to She’s a nice young woman; he’d like to at his attention . . . sublet and showed him the place, Nathan- give her a few words of advice, or reas- Oh, yes. It’s the phrase Yoshi Mat- iel stepped out on to the terrace and tears surance. sumoto used this morning when he called shot right up into his eyes. But what could they possibly be? from Tokyo. Back to normal . . . Back to There was that unearthly palace, the ‘Don’t –’ he begins. normal . . . Chrysler Building! There was the Empire Don’t worry? hahahahaha! Don’t What’s that famous, revolting, sadistic State Building, like a brilliant violet holo- feel sad? ‘Don’t bother about the phones,’ experiment? Something like, you drop gram! There were the vast, twinkling is what he settles down on. A new show the frog into a pot of boiling water and prairies of Brooklyn and New Jersey! goes up tomorrow, and it’s become Luc- it jumps out. But if you drop it into a And best of all, Nathaniel could make out ien’s custom on such evenings to linger pot of cold water and slowly bring the the Statue of Liberty holding her torch in the stripped gallery and have a glass of water to a boil, the frog stays put and gets aloft, as she had held it for each of his par- wine. ‘I’ll take care of them.’ boiled. ents when they arrived as children from But how has he gotten so old? across the ocean – terrified, filthy and Itami Systems is reopening its New York hungry – to safety. suspension branch, was what Matsumoto called to Stars glimmered nearby; towers and So, there was the famous, strangely blank tell Lucien; he’ll be returning to the city spires, glowing emerald, topaz, ruby, sap- New Year’s Eve, the nothing at all that soon. Lucien pictured his old friend’s phire, soared below. The avenues and happened, neither the apocalypse nor mournful, ironic expression as he added, bridges slung a trembling net of light the failure of the planet’s computers, nor, ‘They tell me they’re “exploring addition- across the rivers, over the buildings. Eve- evidently, the dawning of a better age. al avenues of development now that New rything was spangled and dancing; the Nathaniel had gone to parties with his old York is back to normal”.’ little boats glittered. The lights floated up friends from school and was asleep before Lucien had made an inadvertent and up like bubbles. dawn; the next afternoon he awoke with squawk-like sound. He shook his head, Back when Nathaniel moved into Mr only a mild hangover and an uneasy then he shook his head again. Matsumoto’s loft, shortly after his millen- impression of something left undone. ‘Hello?’ Matsumoto said. nial arrival in New York, sitting out on Next thing you knew, along came

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issues 1–29 available online. that slump, as it was called – the gen- for her nephew. And when her poor, extension. ‘Well, I don’t know what eral economic blight that withered the exasperating sister and brother-in-law you’ll tell him,’ Isaac said admiringly. New York branch of Mr Matsumoto’s call frantically about Nathaniel, as they’re ‘But you’re the brains of the family, you’ll firm and clusters of jobs all over the city. bound to do, he’ll do his best to calm think of something.’ There appeared to be no jobs at all, in them down. fact, but then – somehow – Uncle Lucien innocence unearthed one for Nathaniel in the archi- But what a nuisance it all is! The boy is And actually, Russell (who seems to be tectural division of the subway system. as opaque to his parents as a turnip. He not only Amity’s friend and possible It was virtually impossible to aford an was the child of their old age and he’s also, suitor but also her agent) has obtained apartment, but Uncle Lucien arranged for obviously, the repository of all of their for Amity a whopping big advance from Nathaniel to sublet Mr Matsumoto’s loft. baroque hopes and fears. By their own some outfit that Madison refers to as Then Madison and his girlfriend broke account, they throw up their hands and Cheeseball Editions, so whatever else up, so Madison moved into Mr Mat- wring them, lecture Nathaniel about fru- they might all be drinking to (or drinking sumoto’s, too. Not long afterwards, the gality, then press spending money upon about) naturally Amity’s celebrating a bit. brokerage house where Amity was work- him and fret when he doesn’t use it. And Russell, recently arrived from LA, ing collapsed resoundingly, and she’d Between Charlie’s death and Nathan- cannot suppress his ecstasy about how ur joined them. Then Lyle’s landlord jacked iel’s arrival in New York, Lucien heard New York, as he puts it, Mr Matsumoto’s up his rent, so Lyle started living at Mr from Rose and Isaac only at what they loft is, tactless as he apparently recognizes Matsumoto’s as well. considered moments of emergency: this untimely ecstasy to be. As the return of Mr Matsumoto to Nathaniel’s grades were erratic! His ‘It’s fantastic,’ he says. ‘Who did it, do New York was contingent upon the friends were bizarre! Nathaniel had you know?’ return of a reasonable business climate, expressed an interest in architecture, an Nathaniel nods. ‘Matthias Lehmann.’ one way or another it had sort of slipped unreliable future! He drew, and Lucien ‘That’s what I thought, I thought so,’ their minds that Mr Matsumoto was real. had better sit down, comics! Russell says. ‘It looks like Lehmann. Oh, And for over three years there they’ve The lamentations would pour through wow, I can’t believe you guys have to been, hanging in temporary splendour the phone, and then, the instant Lucien move out – I mean, it’s just so totally thirty-one floors above the pavement. hung up, evaporate. But if he had given amazing!’ They’re all out on the terrace this the matter one moment’s thought, he Nathaniel and Madison nod and Lyle evening. Madison has brought in cham- realizes, he would have understood from snifs peevishly. Lyle is stretched out on a pagne so that they can salute with an very early on that it was only a matter of yoga mat that Nathaniel once bought in adequate flourish the end of their tenure time until the boy found his way to the preparation for a romance (as yet manqué) in Mr Matsumoto’s place. And except city. with a prettily tattooed yoga teacher he for Amity, who takes a principled stand It was about four years ago now that runs into in the bodega on the corner. against thoughtful moods, and Amity’s Rose and Isaac put in an especially urgent Lyle’s skin has a waxy, bluish cast; there new friend or possibly suitor, Russell, call. Lucien held the receiver at arm’s are dark patches beneath his eyes. He who has no history here, they’re kind of length and gritted his teeth. ‘You’re an looks like a child too precociously wor- quiet. important man,’ Rose was shouting. ‘We ried to sleep. His boyfriend, Jahan, has understand that, we understand how busy more or less relocated to London, and reunion you are, you know we’d never do this, Lyle has been missing him frantically. Now that Sharmila has gone, Lucien’s but it’s an emergency. The boy’s in New Lying there so still on the yoga mat with stunning, cutting-edge gallery space York, and he sounds terrible. He doesn’t his eyes closed, he appears to be a tomb blurs a bit and recedes. The room, in fact, have a job, lord only knows what he eats sculpture from an as yet non-existent seems almost like an old snapshot from – I don’t know what to think, Lucien, he civilization. that bizarre, quaintly futuristic century, drifts, he’s just drifting. Call him, promise ‘And the view!’ Russell says. ‘This is the twentieth. Lucien takes a bottle of me, that’s all I’m asking.’ probably the most incredible view on the white wine from the little fridge in the ‘Fine, certainly, good,’ Lucien said, planet.’ ofce, pours himself a glass, and from already gabbling; he would have agreed The others consider the sight of Rus- behind a door in that century, emerges to anything if Rose would only hang up. sell’s eager face. And then Amity says, Charlie. ‘But whatever you do,’ she added, ‘More champagne, anyone?’ Charlie – Oh, how long it’s been, how ‘please, please, under no circumstances Well, sure, who knows where Russell unbearably long! Lucien luxuriates in the should you let him know that we asked had been? Who knows where he would little pulse of warmth just under his skin you to call.’ have been on that shining, calm, perfectly that indicates her presence. He strains for Lucien looked at the receiver incredu- blue September morning when the rest traces of her voice, but her words degrade lously. ‘But how else would I have known of them were here having cofee on the like the words in a dream, as if they’re he was in New York?’ he said. ‘How else terrace and looked up at the annoying being rubbed through a sieve. would I have gotten his number?’ racket of a low-flying plane? Why should Yes, yes, Lucien assures her. He’ll put There was a silence, and then a brief, they expect Russell – now, nearly three his mind to finding another apartment amazed laugh from Isaac on another years later – to imagine that moment out

40 on the terrace when Lyle spilled his cof- were far in the past. Nevertheless, the west, embraced them warmly, and as they fee and said, ‘Oh, shit,’ and something family lived in their tidy, midwestern shufed towards the departure door with flashed and something tore, and the house with its two-car garage as if secret the other passengers, turning once to cloudless sky ignited. police were permanently hiding under wave, he breathed a sigh of relief: all that, the matching plastic-covered sofas, as if at least, was over, too. home Brownshirts and Cossacks were perma- As his senses began to revive, he felt a Rose and Isaac have elbowed their way nently rampaging through the suburban brief pang – he would miss, in a minor in behind Charlie, and no matter how streets. way, the heart-rending bufoonery of forcefully Lucien tries to boot them out, Lucien knew precious little about Charlie’s sister and brother-in-law. After they’re making themselves at home, air- vacuum cleaners and nothing at all about all, it had been part of his life with Char- ing their dreary history. childhood infections or lawn fertilizers. lie, even if it had been the only annoying Both sailed as tiny, traumatized chil- And yet, as soon as Charlie introduced part. dren with their separate families and on him, Isaac and Rose set about soliciting But Charlie’s death, instead of setting separate voyages right into the Statue of his views as if he were an authority on him utterly, blessedly adrift in his grief, Liberty’s open arms. Rose was almost everything that existed on their shared had left him anchored permanently of- eleven when her little sister, Charlie, continent. shore of her family like an island. After a came into being, along with a stainless His demurrals, disclaimers and prot- long silence, the infuriating calls started American birth certificate. estations of ignorance were completely up again. The feudal relationship was Neither Rose and Charlie’s parents nor inefective. Whatever guess he was finally apparently inalterable. Isaac’s ever recovered from their journey strong-armed into hazarding was received to the New World, to say nothing of as oracular. Oracular! context what had preceded it. The two sets of Fervent gratitude was expressed: thank When they’d moved in, it probably was old folks spoke, between them, Yiddish, God Charlie had brought Lucien into the best view on the planet. Then, one Polish, Russian, German, Croatian, Slov- the family! How brilliant he was, how morning, out of a clear blue sky, it enian, Ukrainian, Ruthenian, Romanian, knowledgeable and subtle! And then became, for a while, probably the worst. Latvian, Czech and Hungarian, Charlie Rose and Isaac would proceed to pick For a long time now they’ve been able had once told Lucien, but not one of the over his poor little opinion as if they were to hang out here on the terrace without four ever managed to learn more English the most ruthless and highly trained law- anyone running inside to be sick or burst- than was needed to procure a quarter yers, and on the opposing side. ing into tears or diving under something pound of smoked sturgeon from the After Charlie was diagnosed, Lucien at a loud noise or even just making deli. They worked impossible hours, they had just enough time to understand per- macabre jokes or wondering what sort of drank a little schnapps, and then, in due fectly what that was to mean. When he debris is settling into their drinks. These course, they died. was exhausted enough to sleep, he slept days they rarely see – as for a time they Isaac did fairly well manufacturing as though under heavy anaesthetic during invariably did – the sky igniting, the vacuum cleaners. He and Rose were solid an amputation. The pain was not allevi- stinking smoke bursting out of it like lava, members of their temple and the commu- ated, but it had been made inscrutable. A the tiny figures raining down from the nity, but, according to Charlie, no matter frightful thing seemed to lie on top of shattered tower as Lyle faints. how uneventful their lives in the United him, heavy and cold. All night long he But now it’s unclear what they are, in States continued to be, filling out an unfa- would struggle to throw it of, but when fact, looking at. miliar form would cause Isaac’s hands to dawn delivered him to consciousness, he sweat and send jets of acid through his understood what it was, and that it would information innards. When he or Rose encountered never go away. What would Charlie say about the show someone in uniform – a train conductor, During his waking hours, the food on that’s about to go up? It’s work by a a meter maid, a crossing guard – their his plate would abruptly lose its taste, the youngish Belgian painter who arrived, hearts would leap into their throats and painting he was studying would bleach splashily, on the scene sometime after they would think: Passport! of the canvas, the friend he was talking Charlie’s departure. It’s good work, but Their three elder sons, Nathaniel’s to would turn into a stranger. And then, these days Lucien can’t get terribly excit- brothers, fulfilled Rose and Isaac’s deep- one day, he was living in a world all made ed about any of the shows. The vibrancy est hopes by turning out to be blindingly out of paper, where the sun was a wad of of his brain arranging itself in response to inconspicuous. The boys were so reliable old newspapers and the only sounds were something of someone else’s making, the and had so few characteristics it was hard the sounds of tearing paper. heart’s little leap – his gift, reliable for so to imagine what anyone could think up He spoke with Rose and Isaac fre- many years, is gone. Or mostly gone; it’s to kill them for. They were Jewish, of quently during Charlie’s illness, and they flattened out into something banal and course, but even Rose and Isaac under- came to New York for her memorial tepid. It’s as if he’s got some part that’s stood that this particular criterion was service, where they sat self-consciously simply worn out and needs replacing. inoperative in the United States – at least and miserably among Lucien and Char- Let’s hope it’s still available, he thinks. for the time being. lie’s attractive friends. He took them to How did he get so old? The usual stu- The Old World, danger and poverty the airport for their return to the Mid- pid question. One had snickered all one’s

41 life as the plaintive old geezers doddered Sometime after Charlie’s death, Lucien also, he had plenty of time, living where about bafed, as if looking for a mis- resumed throwing his parties. He and his he did, to work on Passivityman. placed sock, tugging one’s sleeve, asking friends continued to buy art and make art, And that’s what he told Amity, too, sheepishly: How did I get so old? to drink and reflect. They voted respon- when she’d called one night, four years The mere sight of one’s patiently blank sibly, they gave to charity, they read the ago, urging him to take the plunge. expression turned them vicious. It will paper assiduously. And while they were ‘It’s time for you to try, Nathaniel,’ she happen to you, they’d raged. basking in their exclusive sunshine, what said. ‘It’s time to commit. This oddball, Well, all right, it would. But not in had happened to the planet? Lucien gazes slacker stance is getting kind of old, don’t the ridiculous way it had happened to at his glass of wine, his eyes stinging. you think, kind of stale. You cannot let them. And yet, here he is, he and his your life be ruled by fear any longer.’ friends, falling like so much landfill into homesick ‘Fear?’ He flinched. ‘By what fear, the dump of old age. Or at least strug- Nathaniel was eight or nine when his aunt exactly, do you happen to believe my life gling desperately to balance on the brink. and uncle had come out to the Midwest is ruled?’ Yet one second ago, running so swiftly to visit the family, lustrous and clever and ‘Well, I mean, fear of failure, obviously. towards it, they hadn’t even seen it. comfortable and humorous and afection- Fear of mediocrity.’ And what had happened to his youth? ate with one another, in their soft, stylish For an instant he thought he might be Unlike a misplaced sock, it isn’t any- clothing. They’d brought books with sick. where; it had dissolved in the making of them to read. When they talked to each ‘Right,’ he said. ‘And why should I him. other – and they habitually did – not only fear failure and mediocrity? Failure and Surprising that after Charlie’s death did they take turns, but also, what one said mediocrity have such august traditions! he did not take the irreversible step. He’d followed on what the other said. What Anyhow, what’s up with you, Amity?’ had no appetite to live. But the body has world could they have come from? What She’d been easily distracted, and they its own appetite, apparently – that pitiless was the world in which beings like his chatted on for a while, but when they need to continue with its living, which aunt and uncle could exist? hung up, he felt very, very strange, as if has so many disguises and so many ration- A world utterly unlike his parents’, his apartment had slightly changed shape. ales. that was for sure – a world of freedom Amity was right, he’d thought; it was fear A deep embarrassment has been stalk- and lightness and beauty and the ardent that stood between him and the life he’d ing him. Every time he lets his guard exchange of ideas and . . . and . . . fun. meant to be leading. down these days, there it is. Because A great longing rose up in Nathaniel That was probably the coldest night it’s become clear: he and even the most like a flower with a lovely, haunting fra- of the whole, difcult millennium. The dissolute among his friends have glided grance. When he was ready, he’d thought timid midwestern sun had basically gone through their lives on the assumption that – when he was able, when he was worthy, down at the beginning of September; it the sheer fact of their existence has in he’d get to the world from which his wouldn’t be around much again till May. some way made the world a better place. magic aunt and uncle had once briefly Black ice glared on the street outside like As deranged as it sounds now, a better appeared. the cloak of an extra-cruel witch. The place. Not a leafy bower, maybe, but still, The evidence, though, kept piling up sink faucet was dripping into a cracked a somewhat better place – more tolerant, that he was not worthy. Because even and stained teacup: tick tock tick tock . . more amenable to the wonderful adven- when he finished school, he simply didn’t . tures of the human mind and the human budge. How unfair it was – his friends What was he doing? Once he’d dreamed body, more capable of outrage against had flown of so easily, as if going to New of designing tranquil and ennobling injustice . . . York were nothing at all. dwellings, buildings that urged benign For shame! One has been shocked, all Immediately after graduation, Madison relationships, rich inner harmonies; he’d one’s life, to learn of the blind eye turned found himself a job at a fancy New York dreamed of meeting fascinating stran- to children covered with bruises and PR firm. And it seemed that there was a gers. True, he’d managed to avoid certain welts, the blind eye turned to the men place out there on the trading floor of the pitfalls of middle-class adulthood – he who came at night for the neighbours. Stock Exchange for Amity. And Lyle had wasn’t a white-collar criminal, for exam- And yet . . . And yet one has clung to the suddenly exhibited an astonishing tal- ple; he wasn’t (at least as far as he knew) a belief that the sun shining inside one’s ent for sound design and engineering, so total blowhard. But what was he actually head is evidence of sunshine elsewhere. where else would he sensibly live, either? doing? His most exciting social contact Not everywhere, of course. Obviously, Yes, the fact was that only Nathaniel was the radio. He spent his salaried hours at every moment something terrible is seemed slated to remain behind in their in a cinder-block ofce building, poring being done to someone somewhere – one college town. Well, he told himself, over catalogues of plumbing fixtures. can’t really know about each instance of his parents were getting on; he would The rest of the day – and the whole it! worry, so far away. And he was actually evening, too – he sat at the little desk his Then again, how far away does some- employed as a part-time assistant with an parents had bought for him when he was thing have to be before you have the right actual architectural firm, whereas in New in junior high, slaving over Passivityman, a to not really know about it? York the competition, for even the lowli- comic strip that ran in free papers all over est of such jobs, would be ferocious. And parts of the Midwest, a comic strip that

42 was doted on by whole dozens, the fact tightened his Net of Evil around the lived – constantly vigilant against the pre- was, of stoned undergrads. planet Earth, and he’s dragging it out of mature conclusion, scrupulously rejecting He was twenty-four years old! Soon orbit! The US Congress is selected by the vulgar ambition, rigorously deferring he’d be twenty-eight. In a few more min- pharmaceutical companies, the state of judgement and action . . . and all for the utes he’d be thirty-five, then fifty. Five Israel is run by Christian fundamentalists, greater good. zero. How had that happened? He was the folks that haul toxic sludge manufac- ‘Huh, well, I guess he’s sort of losing eighty! He could feel his vascular system ture cattle feed and process burgers, your his superpowers,’ and brain clogging with paste, he was sources of news and information are edit- Nathaniel said. drooling . . . ed by a giant mouse, New York City and The others looked away uncomfort- And if history had anything to teach, Christian fundamentalism are holdings of ably. it was that he’d be broke when he was a family in Kuwait – and all of it’s owned by ‘Oh, it’s probably just one of those eighty, too, and that his personal life Captain Corporation!’ slumps,’ Amity said. ‘I’m sure he’ll be would still be a disaster. Passivityman rubs his eyes and yawns. back to normal, soon.’ ‘Well gosh, Pru, sure – but, like, what am But wait. Long ago, panic had sent his I supposed to do about it?’ But by now, Nathaniel realizes, he’s all grandparents and parents scurrying from ‘I don’t know,’ Princess Prudence says. but stopped trying to work on Passivity- murderous Europe, with its death camps ‘It’s hardly my job to figure that out, is it? man. and pogroms, to the safe harbour of New I mean, you’re the superhero. Just – just York. Panic had kept them going as far as – just go out and do something conspicu- all this the Midwest, where gruelling labour ena- ously lacking in monetary value! Invent Thanks for pointing that out, Miss Muel- bled them and eventually their children to some stinky, profit-proof gloop to pour ler. Yes, humanity seems to have reverted lead blessedly ordinary lives. And sooner on stuf. Or, I don’t know, whatever. But by a millennium or so. Goon squads, or later, Nathaniel’s pounding heart was you’d better do something, before it’s too purporting to represent each of the telling him, that same sure-footed guide, late.’ world’s three great religions – as they used panic, would help him retrace his family’s ‘Sounds like it’s totally too late to be called to fifth-graders, and perhaps steps all the way back to Manhattan. already,’ says Passivityman, reaching for still so misleadingly are – have deployed a cigarette. themselves all over the map, apparently in opportunism hopes of annihilating not only each other, Blip! Charlie scatters again as Lucien’s It was quite a while ago now that Pas- but absolutely everyone, themselves attention wavers from her and the empty sivityman seemed to throw in the towel. excepted. space belonging to her is seized by Miss Nathaniel’s friends looked at the strip Just a few weeks earlier, Lucien was on Mueller. with him and scratched their heads. a plane heading home from Los Ange- Huh, but what do you know – death ‘Hm, I don’t know, Nathaniel,’ Amity les, and over the loudspeaker, the pilot suits Miss Mueller! In life she was drab, said. ‘This episode is awfully complicated. requested that all Christians on board but now she absolutely throbs with I mean, Passivityman’s seeming kind of raise their hands. The next sickening ghoulishness. You there, Lucien – the shriek passive-aggressive, actually.’ instants provided more than enough time echoes around the gallery – What are the ‘Can Passivityman not be bothered for conjecture as to who, exactly, was world’s three great religions? any longer to protect the abject with his about to be killed – Christians or non- Zen Buddhism, Jainism and Sufism, he greed-repelling Shield of Sloth?’ Lyle Christians. And then the pilot went on to responds sulkily. asked. ask those who had raised their hands to Naughty boy! She cackles flirtatiously. ‘It’s not going to be revealed that Pas- talk about their ‘faith’ with the others. Bang bang, you’re dead! sivityman is a double agent, is it?’ Madi- Well, better him than Rose and Isaac; son said. ‘I mean, what about his undying that would have been two sure heart the half-life of passivity struggle against corporate-model ef- attacks, right there. And anyhow, why Passivityman is taking a snooze, his stand- ciency?’ should he be so snooty about religious ard response to stress, when the alarm ‘The truth is, I don’t really know what’s fanaticism? Stalin managed to kill of over rings. ‘I’ll check it out later, boss,’ he going on with him,’ Nathaniel said. ‘I thirty million people in the name of no murmurs. was thinking that maybe, unbeknownst god at all, and not so very long ago. ‘You’ll check it out now, please,’ his to himself, he’s come under the thrall of girlfriend and superior, the beautiful his morally neutral, transgendering twin, At the moment when all this – as Lucien Princess Prudence, tells him. ‘Just put Ambiguityperson.’ thinks of it – began, the moment when a on those grubby corduroys and get out ‘Yeah,’ Madison said. ‘But I mean, the few ordinary-looking men carrying box there.’ problem here is that he’s just not dealing cutters sped past the limits of internation- ‘Aw, is it really urgent?’ he asks. with the paradox of his own being – he al negotiation and the frontiers of tech- ‘Don’t you get it?’ she says. ‘I’ve been seems kind of intellectually passive . . .’ nology, turning his miraculous city into warning you, episode after episode! And Oh, dear. Poor Passivityman. He was a a nightmare and hurling the future into a now, from his appliance-rich house on tired old crime fighter. Nathaniel sighed; void, Lucien was having his croissant and the Moon, Captain Corporation has it was hard to live the way his superhero cofee.

43 The television was saying something. just getting to that.’ the event taking place is not occurring,’ Lucien wheeled around and stared at it, For months afterwards, Madison kept Madison says. ‘The other fifty per cent then turned to look out the window; everyone awake late into the night repu- remain undecided. Clearly, the truth lies downtown, black smoke was already diating all his former beliefs, his beautiful somewhere in between.’ beginning to pollute the perfect, silken blue eyes whirling around and his hair Soon it might be as if he and Lyle and September morning. On the screen, the standing on end as if he’d stuck his hand Madison and Amity had never even lived ruptured,flaming colossus was shedding into a socket. He quit his lucrative PR here. Because this moment is joined to all veils of tiny black specks. job and denounced the firm’s practices in the other moments they’ve spent together All circuits were busy, of course; the open letters to media watchdog groups here, and all of those moments are Right phone might as well have been a toy. Luc- (copies to his former boss). The many Now. But soon this moment and all the ien was trembling as he shut the door of women who’d been running after him did others will be cut of – in the past, not the apartment behind him. His face was a fast about-face. part of Right Now at all. Yeah, he and wet. Outside, he saw that the sky in the Amity called him a ‘bitter sceptic’; he his three friends might all be going their north was still insanely blue. called Amity a ‘dupe’. The heated quar- separate ways, come to think of it, once rel that followed has tapered of into an they move out. the age of dross uneasy truce, at best. Well, superpowers are probably a fea- Lyle’s superpower back in school was continuity ture of youth, like Wendy’s ability to fly his spectacular level of aggrievedness and While the sirens screamed, Lucien had around with that creepy Peter Pan. Or his ability to get anyone at all to feel sorry walked against the tide of dazed, smoke- maybe they belonged to a loftier period for him. But later, doing sound with a smeared people, down into the fuming of history. It seems that Captain Cor- Paris-based dance group, Lyle met Jahan, cauldron, and when he finally reached poration, his swaggering lieutenants and who was doing the troupe’s lighting. the police cordon, his feet aching, he massed armies have actually neutralized Jahan is (a) as handsome as a prince, (b) wandered along it for hours, searching Passivityman’s superpower. Passivity- as charming, as intelligent, as noble in his for Charlie’s nephew, among all the other man’s astonishing reserves of resistance thoughts, feelings and actions as a prince, people who were searching for family, have vanished in the quicksand of Cap- and (c) a prince, at least of some attenu- friends, lovers. tain Corporation’s invisible account ated sort. So no one feels sorry for Lyle books. His rallying cry, No way, which at all any longer, and Lyle has apparently Oh, that day! One kept waiting – as if a once rang out over the land, demobiliz- left the pleasures of even self-pity behind morning would arrive from before that ing millions, has been altered by Captain him without a second thought. day to take them all along a diferent Corporation’s co-optophone into What- A while ago, though, Jahan was mistak- track. One kept waiting for that shatter- ever. And the superpowers of Nathaniel’s enly arrested in some sort of sweep near ing day to unhappen, so that the real – the friends have been seriously challenged, Times Square, and when he was finally intended – future, the one that had been too. Challenged, or . . . outgrown. released from custody, he moved to implied by the past, could unfold. Hour Amity’s superpower, her gift for London, and Lyle does nothing but pine, after hour, month after month, waiting exploiting systemic weaknesses, had when he can’t be in London himself. for that day to not have happened. But taken a terrible beating several years ago ‘Well, look on the bright side,’ Nath- it had happened. And now it was always when the gold she spun out on the trad- aniel said. ‘At least you might get your going to have happened. ing floor turned – just like everyone else’s superpower back.’ – into straw. And subsequently, she plum- ‘You know, Nathaniel . . .’ Lyle said. Most likely on the very mornings that meted from job to job, through layers of He looked at Nathaniel for a moment, first Rose and then Isaac had disembarked prestige, ending up behind a counter in and then an unfamiliar kindness modified at Ellis Island, each clutching some rem- a fancy department store where she sold his expression. He patted Nathaniel on nant of the world they were never to see overpriced skin-care products. the shoulder and went on his way. again, Lucien was being wheeled in his Now, of course, the sale of Inner Beauty Yikes. So much for Lyle’s superpower, pram through the genteel world, a few Secrets – her humorous, lightly fictional- obviously. miles uptown, of brownstones. ized account of her experiences there The city, more than his body, con- with her clients – indicates that perhaps ‘It’s great that you got to live here for so tained his life. His life! The schools he her powers are regenerating. But time long, though,’ Russell is saying. had gone to as a child, the market where will tell. Nathaniel has the sudden sensation of his mother had bought the groceries, Madison’s superpower, an obtuse, his whole four years in New York twist- the park where he had played with his patrician equanimity in the face of damn- ing themselves into an arrow, speeding classmates, the restaurants where he had ing fact, was violently and irremediably through the air and twanging into the courted Charlie, the various apartments terminated one day when a girl arrived at dead centre of this evening. All so hard to they’d lived in, the apartments of their the door asking for him. believe. ‘This is not happening,’ he says. friends, the gallery, the newsstand on the ‘I’m your sister,’ she told him. ‘Sorry,’ ‘I think it might really be happening, corner, the dry cleaner’s . . . The things Madison said, ‘I’ve never seen you before though,’ Lyle says. he did in the course of the day, year after in my life.’ ‘Hang on,’ the girl said. ‘I’m ‘Fifty per cent of respondents say that year, the people he encountered.

44 A sticky layer of crematorium ash settled favourite CDs. They drank perfumey to want to say exactly what they want over the whole of Matsumoto’s neigh- infusions from chipped porcelain cups, or you to say? Do you know how many bourhood, even inside, behind closed vodka. Delphine could become thrillingly people you’re killing over there? No, how windows, as thick in places as turf, and drunk, and she smoked, letting long col- would you? Good, just keep your eyes water was unavailable for a time. Nathan- umns of ash form on her tarry, unfiltered closed, panic, don’t ask any questions, and iel and his friends all stayed elsewhere, of cigarettes. One night, when he lost his you can speak freely about whatever you course, for a few weeks. When it became keys, she let him come over and sleep in like. And if you have any suspicious-look- possible, Lucien sent crews down to her bed while she went out, and when the ing neighbours, be sure to tell the police. Matsumoto’s loft to scour the place and sky fell, she actually let him sleep on her You had everything here, everything, and restore the art. floor for a week. you threw it all away in one second.’ Her apartment was filled with pufy, She was so beautiful; he’d gazed at her farewell silky little sofas, and old, damaged mir- as if he were already remembering her. A memorandum hanging in Mr Mat- rors and tarnished candlesticks, and tall ‘Please don’t say “you”,’ he murmured sumoto’s lobby appeared several months vases filled with slightly wilting flow- again. ago when freakish blackouts were rolling ers. It smelled like powder and tea and ‘Poor Nathaniel,’ she said. ‘This place is over the city. cigarettes and her Abyssinian cats, which nothing now but a small-minded, mean- Emergency Tips from the Management prowled the savannas of the white, long- spirited provincial town.’ urges residents to assemble a Go Bag, in haired rugs or posed on the marble man- the event of an evacuation, as well as an telpiece. the age of digital reasoning In-Home Survival Kit. Among items to Delphine’s father was Armenian and One/two. On/of. The plane crashes/ include: a large amount of cash in small he lived in Paris, which according to doesn’t crash. denominations, water and non-perishable Delphine was a bore. Her mother was The plane he took from LA didn’t foods such as granola bars, a wind-up Chilean. Delphine’s English had been crash. It wasn’t used as a missile to blow radio, warm clothing and sturdy walking acquired at a boarding school in Kent for anything up, and not even one passenger shoes, unscented bleach and an eyedrop- dull-witted rich girls and castaways, like was shot or stabbed. Nothing happened. per for purifying water, plastic sheeting herself, from everywhere. So, what’s the problem? What’s the difer- and duct tape, a whistle, a box cutter. She spoke many languages, she was ence between having been on that flight Also recommended is a Household self-possessed and beautiful and fascinat- and having been on any other flight in his Disaster Plan and the practising of emer- ing. She could have gone to live any- life? gency drills. where. And she had come, like Nathaniel, Oh, what’s the point of thinking about A hand-lettered sign next to the eleva- to New York. death all the time! Think about it or not, tor says think twice. ‘But look at it now,’ she’d raged. Wash- you die. Besides – and here’s something Twenty-eight years old, no superhero, ington was dropping bombs on Afghani- that sure hasn’t changed – you don’t have a job that just might lead down to a career stan and then Iraq, and every few weeks to do it more than once. And as you don’t in underground architecture, a vanish- there was a flurry of alerts in kinder- have to do it less than once, either, you ing apartment, a menacing elevator . . . garten colours indicating the likelihood might as well do it on the plane. Maybe Maybe he should view Mr Matsumoto’s of terrorist attacks: yellow, orange, red, there’s no special problem these days. return as an opportunity, and regroup. duck! Maybe the problem is just that he’s old. Maybe he should do something – take ‘Do you know how I get the news Or maybe his nephew’s is the last gen- matters in hand. Maybe he should go try here?’ Delphine said. ‘From your news- eration that will remember what it had to find Delphine, for example. papers? Please! From your newspapers I once felt like to blithely assume there But how? He hasn’t heard from her, learn what restaurant has opened. News would be a future – at least a future like and she could be anywhere now; she’d I learn in taxis, from the drivers. And the one that had been implied by the past mentioned Bucharest, she’d mentioned how do they get it? From their friends they’d all been familiar with. Havana, she’d mentioned Shanghai, she’d and relatives back home, in Pakistan or mentioned Istanbul . . . Uzbekistan or Somalia. The drivers sit But the future actually ahead of them, it’s He’d met her at one of his uncle’s par- around at the airport, swapping informa- now obvious, had itself been implied by ties. There was the usual huge roomful tion, and they can tell you anything. But a past; and the terrible day that pointed of people wearing strangely pleated black do you ask? Or sometimes I talk to my them towards that future had been pre- clothes, like the garments of a sombre friends in Europe. Do you know what pared for a long, long time, though it had devotional sect, and there she was in they’re saying about you over there?’ been prepared behind a curtain. electric-blue tafeta, amazingly tall and ‘Please don’t say “you”, Delphine,’ he It was as if there had been a curtain, narrow, lazy and nervous, like an electric had said faintly. a curtain painted with the map of the bluebell. ‘Oh, yes, here it’s not like stufy old earth, its oceans and continents, with She favoured men nearly twice Nath- Europe, where everything is stifled by Lucien’s delightful city. The planes struck, aniel’s age and millions of times richer, tradition and trauma. Here you’re able tearing through the curtain of that blue but for a while she let Nathaniel come to speak freely, within reason, of course, September morning, exposing the dark over to her apartment and play her his and isn’t it wonderful that you all happen world that lay right behind it, of popula-

45 tions ruthlessly exploited, inflamed with occasional boa constrictor draped around the sight that had been hidden by the hatred, and tired of waiting for change to its owner’s shoulders. After that, it was curtain, of all those irrepressibly, murder- happen by. tiny, trembling dogs that travelled in ously angry people. purses and pockets. The stump of the ruined tower contin- New York had once been the threshold Private life shrank to nothing. All one’s ued to smoulder far into the fall, and an of an impregnable haven, then the city feelings had been absorbed by an arid unseasonable heat persisted. When the had become in an instant the country’s wasteland – policy, strategy, goals. One’s smoke lifted, all kinds of other events, open wound, and now it was the occa- past, one’s future, one’s ordinary daily which had been prepared behind a cur- sion – the pretext! – for killing and theft pleasures were like dusty little curios on tain, too, were revealed. Flags waved in and legislative horrors all over the world. a shelf. the brisk air of fear, files were demanded The air stank from particulate matter – Lucien continued defiantly throwing from libraries and hospitals, droning chemicals and asbestos and blood and his parties, but as the murky wars dragged helicopters hung over the city, and heav- scorched bone. People developed coughs on, he stopped. It was impossible to have ily armed policemen patrolled the parks. and strange rashes. fun or to want to have fun. It was one Meanwhile, one read that executives had thing to have fun if the sun was shining pocketed the savings of their investors What should be done, and to whom? generally, quite another thing to have fun and the pensions of their employees. Almost any word, even between friends, if it was raining blood everywhere but on could ignite a sheet of flame. What were your party.What did he and his friends The wars in the East were hidden behind the bombings for? First one imperative really have in common, anyway? Maybe a thicket of language: patriotism, democ- was cited and then another; the rationales nothing more than their level of privilege. racy, loyalty, freedom – the words bounced shifted hastily to cover successive gaps in around, changing purpose, as if they were credibility. Bills were passed containing In restaurants and cafes all over the city, made out of some funny plastic. What buried provisions, and loopholes were people seemed to have changed. The did they actually refer to? It seemed that triumphantly discovered – alarming good-hearted, casually wasteful festival they all might refer to money. elasticities or rigidities in this law or that. was over. In some places the diners were One was sick of trying to get a solid han- sullen and dogged, as if they felt accused Were the sudden power outages and spik- dle on the stream of pronouncements – it of getting away with something. ing level of unemployment related? And was like endlessly trying to sort little bits In other places, the gaiety was cranked what was causing them? The newspapers of paper into stacks when a powerful fan up to the level of completely unconvinc- seemed for the most part to agree that was on. ing hysteria. For a long miserable while, the cause of both was terrorism. But lots Friends in Europe and Asia sent him in fact, the city looked like a school play of people said they were both the conse- clippings about his own country. What’s about war profiteering. The bars were quence of corporate theft. It was certainly all this, they asked – secret arrests and overflowing with very young people all beyond Lucien! Things that had for- detentions, his president capering about from heaven only knew where, in hide- merly appeared to be distinct, or even at in military uniform, crazy talk of pre- ous, ludicrously showy clothing, spend- odds, now seemed to have been smoothly emptive nuclear strikes? Why were they ing massive amounts of money on green, blended, to mutual advantage. Provoca- releasing a big science fiction horror pink and orange cocktails, and laughing at tion and retribution, arms manufacture movie over there, about the emperor of the top of their lungs, as if at filthy jokes. and statehood, oil and war, commerce everything everywhere, for which the No, not like a school play – like a and dogma, and the spinning planet whole world was required to buy tickets? movie, though the performances and the seemed to be boiling them all together What on earth was going on with them direction were crude. The loud, osten- at the centre of the earth into a poison all, why were they all so silent? Why did sibly carefree young people appeared syrup. Enemies had soared towards each they all seem so confused? to be extras recruited from the suburbs, other from out of the past to unite in How was he to know, Lucien thought. and yet sometime in the distant future, a joyous fireball; planes had sheared If his foreign friends had such great news- people seeing such a movie might think, through the heavy, painted curtain and papers, why didn’t they tell him! Oh, yes, that was a New York that from the severed towers an inexhaustible existed once, say, at the end of the mil- geyser had erupted. No more smiles from strangers on the lennium. street! Well, it was reasonable to be It was Lucien’s city, Lucien’s times, Styles of pets revolved rapidly, as if the frightened; everyone had seen what those and yet what he appeared to be living in city’s residents were searching for a type few men were able to do with the odds wasn’t the actual present – it was an inac- of animal that would express a stance and ends in their pockets. The heat lifted, curate representation of the past. True, it appropriate to the horrifying assault, and then there was unremitting cold. No looked something like the New York that which for all anyone knew was only the one lingered to joke and converse in the existed before all this began, but Lucien first of many. course of their errands, but instead hur- remembered, and he could see: the cos- For a couple of months everyone was ried irritably along, like people with bad tumes were not quite right, the hairstyles walking cute, perky things. Then Lucien consciences. were not quite right, the gestures and the saw snarling hounds everywhere and the And always in front of you now was dialogue were not quite right.

46 Oh. Yes. Of course none of it was quite it back down with a tiny shrug and a their stripes and polka dots and flufness – right – the movie was a propaganda movie. lifted eyebrow. ‘You don’t approve?’ Aunt to cheer themselves up. And now it seems that the propaganda Charlie said, and Nathaniel is shocked to movie has done its job; things, in a gro- see, in his memory, that she is tense. Poor old Earth, an old sponge, a hon- tesque sense, are back to normal. His mother, having gained the advan- eycomb of empty mine shafts and dried Money is flowing a bit again, most tage, makes another bitter little shrug. wells. While he and his friends were of the flags have folded up, those nerve- ‘I’m sure it’s over my head,’ she says. wittering on, the planet underfoot had wracking terror alerts have all but When the term of the visit came to been looted. The waterways glint with stopped, the kids in the restaurants have an end, they dropped Uncle Lucien and weapons-grade plutonium, sneaked on calmed down, no more rolling blackouts, Aunt Charlie at the airport. His brother barges between one wrathful nation and and the dogs on the another, the polar ice caps street encode no particu- melt, Venice sinks. lar messages. Once again, In the horrible old days people are concerned in Europe when Rose and with getting on with Isaac were hunted chil- their lives. Once again, dren, it must have been the curtain has dropped. pretty clear to them how to behave, minute by minute. Except that people seem Men in jackboots? Up to a little bit nervous, a the attic! little uncomfortable, a But even during that little wary. Because you time when it was so danger- can’t help sort of know- ous to speak out, to act cou- ing that what you’re rageously, heroes emerged. seeing is only the cur- Most of them died fruit- tain. And you can’t help lessly, of course, and unh- guessing what might be eralded. But now there are going on behind it. even monuments to some of them, and information the further in the about such people is always past things are, coming to light. the bigger they Maybe there really is become no problem, maybe eve- Nathaniel remembers rything really is back to more and more rather than less and less was driving, too fast. Nathaniel can hear normal and maybe the whole period vividly the visit of his uncle and aunt to himself announcing in his child’s piercing will sink peacefully away, to be remem- the Midwest during his childhood. voice, ‘I want to live in New York like Uncle bered only by scholars. But if it should He’d thought his aunt Charlie was the Lucien and Aunt Charlie!’ His exile’s heart end, instead, in dire catastrophe, whom most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. was brimming, but it was clear from his will the monuments of the future com- And for all he knows, she really was. He mother’s profile that she was braced for memorate? never saw her after that one visit; by the an execution. Today, all day long, Lucien has seen time he came to New York and recon- ‘Slow down, Bernie!’ his mother said, the president’s vacant, stricken expression nected with Uncle Lucien she had been but Bernie hadn’t. ‘Big shot,’ she mut- staring from the ubiquitous television dead for a long time. She would still have tered, though it was unclear at whom this screens. He seemed to be talking about been under fifty when she died – crushed, was directed – whether at his brother or positioning weapons in space, colonizing his mother had once, in a mood, implied, himself or his father, or his uncle Lucien, the moon. by the weight of her own pretensions. or at Aunt Charlie herself. Open your books to page 167, class, Miss His poor mother! She had cooked, back to normal Mueller shrieks. What do you see? cleaned, and fretted for . . . months, it Do dogs have to fight sadness as tirelessly Lucien sighs. had seemed, in preparation for that visit as humans do? They seem less involved The pages are thin and sort of shiny. of Uncle Lucien and Aunt Charlie. And with retrospect, less involved in dread and The illustrations are mostly black and observing in his memory the four grown- anticipation. Animals other than humans white. ups, Nathaniel can see an awful lot of appear to be having a more profound This one’s a photograph of a statue, an white knuckles. experience of the present. But who’s to emperor, apparently, wearing his stone He remembers his mother picking up say? Clearly their feelings are intense, and toga and his stone wreath. The real peo- a book Aunt Charlie had left lying on the maybe grief and anxiety darken all their ple, the living people, mill about just kitchen table, glancing at it and putting days. Maybe that’s why they’ve acquired beyond the picture’s confines, but Luc-

47 ien knows more or less what they look ‘Thanks,’ Amity says. worriedly over their choices, as if nobody like – he’s seen illustrations of them, too. ‘Okay,’ Russell says. ‘I’m in.’ ever had before or would ever have again He knows what a viaduct is and that the Nathaniel shrugs and holds out his glass. the opportunity to eat ice cream. ancient Romans went to plays and ban- Madison pours. ‘Polls indicate that 100 quets and that they had a code of law from per cent of the American public approves Just last night, he dreamed about Delphine, which his country’s own is derived. Are heavy drinking,’ he says. a delicious champagne-style dream, full the people hidden by the picture fright- ‘Oh, god, Madison,’ Amity says. ‘Can’t of love and beauty – a weird, high-quality ened? Do they hear the stones working we ever just drop it? Can’t we ever just love, a feeling he doesn’t remember ever themselves loose, the temples and houses have a nice time?’ having had in his waking life – a pure, and courts beginning to crumble? Madison looks at her for a long wholehearted, shining love. Out the window, the sun is just a tiny, moment. ‘Drop what?’ he says, evenly. It hangs around him still, floating tiny bit higher today than it was at this But no one wants to get into that. through the air out on the terrace – fra- exact instant yesterday. After school, he grant, shimmering, fading. and Robbie Stern will go play soccer in When Nathaniel was in his last year at col- the park. In another month it will be lege, his father began to sufer from heart waiting bright and warm. trouble. It was easy enough for Nathaniel The bell is about to ring. Closing his book to come home on the weekends, and he’d Lucien hears the thrilling crash as the paradise sit with his father, gazing out the window bloated empire tumbles down. So, Mr Matsumoto will be coming back, as the autumnal light gilded the dry grass Gold star, Lucien! Miss Mueller cackles and things seem pretty much as they did and the fallen leaves glowed. deafeningly, and then she’s gone. when he left. The apartment is clean, the His father talked about his own time at Charlie’s leaving, too. Lucien lifts his cats are healthy, the art is undamaged, and school, working night and day, the pride glass; she glances back across the thin, the view from the terrace is exactly the his parents had taken in him, the first col- inflexible divide. same, except there’s that weird, blank spot lege student in their family. From further than the moon she sees where the towers used to stand. Over the years Nathaniel’s mother and the children of some distant planet study ‘Open the next?’ Madison says, hold- father had grown gentler with one anoth- pictures in their text: there’s Rose and ing up a bottle of champagne. ‘Strongly er and with him. Sometimes after dinner Isaac at their kitchen table, Nathaniel out agree, agree, undecided, disagree, strongly and the dishes, they’d all go out for a treat. on Mr Matsumoto’s terrace, Lucien alone disagree.’ Nathaniel would wait, an acid pity weak- in the dim gallery – and then the children ‘Strongly agree,’ Lyle says. ening his bones, while his parents debated turn the page. ◊

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