[54] Blood and wounds that I saw now?
The next few months. I remember a lot, but it’s a ball of time. Emma can give you dates if you must. She has a head for dates that’s a magic trick. For anything with numbers. 1812, 1683, 1759, those ones are easy. But try 17 July 1907. No…
[53] O hear me, master of the silver bow
Her bedroom has stone walls, a ceiling lost in shadow, two high windows without curtains. A tall, well-stuffed bookcase and one soft day bed with a lamp. A huge bed. Everything is comfortable – it just doesn’t look that way.
‘Freddie…
[52] A dream sleep has fallen over the city
That’s the first thing I know about Paul that he doesn’t have to tell me – he has an older sister. When I wrap myself in her cape and step outside, she and her husband have galloped off. Five hundred metres down a path through woods bumpy…
[51] Weeps one moment and as quickly laughs
I don’t carry a watch. There’s usually a church close enough that I can count the bell. So that first sleep ends around twenty minutes before eight. I hear the hunting dogs coming, but let her sleep another ten minutes. When I hear the hooves…
[50] Words have made my eyes enebriate
I hadn’t planned this; her walk decided me. How she moved, how she didn’t stop when she could, how she shed her skin with the city, and how I could tell she’d never done that before and how she wanted to.
She’s watching me kindle…
[49] They eddy before the gate of the barons
After lunch, which doesn’t last long because Gus is a slave to his work though he never looks like he’s working, Paul asks me if I have the afternoon. That’s the only question he’ll ask all day. I tell him I do, though I don’t. Then…
[48] The fire must sting me first
I’d rather have the east wind. So would Paul. The east wind means sunlight for him, and then the west one moves in for a few days and the sky goes crash. A city like this, you can almost touch the sky on days like that, and it’s lead-coloured…
[47] I learned that those who undergo
The wind, the Eternal Third. A whisper beyond the horizon, a mysterious dialogue of the air. From the window, I watch them say goodbye. When Paul comes back upstairs, I’ve poured myself a last half-glass of Tokay. I’m watching the lamplight…
[46] Johnny’s Long Night
Stories – there are a few I can describe for you, the ones that Emma carries close enough that I always see her wearing them. About the night we mixed Johnny ... I know that one from watching her face when I can tell she’s remembering it.…
[45] Spontaneity’s funereal rites
About being Jewish, according to her grandfather, it’s hardly a religion any more, even for most Jews. From what I’ve seen, in this city it’s more like a club that people who don’t belong won’t let Emma quit. You grow up hearing from…
[44] Celestial forces strike the earth
‘I’m cruel to everyone but you,’ Paul says. No, he doesn’t say it but I can hear him thinking it. No, he isn’t thinking it, but I can tell he’d accept that thought if it occurred to him. In fact, probably none of that. I’m saying…
[43] We can only conquer ourselves
I did it, twenty-two days after our return. I admitted to myself what I had no choice about. I took the lift down to the carriage hallway and Johnny-walked two doors to the Swan for the afternoon and drank a row of long pulls and played bouncy…
[42] After me there will be no time
I’ve got insight into my condition, what they called it, the doctors. As if getting better was about getting their approval. Basically, you feel bad, and then you feel worse about feeling bad, and then you feel even worse about feeling worse,…
[41] Long buried memories of utopian dreams
Paul can sit down in a room with a book, or fall asleep on the couch, or fix a faucet drip, but not until after he’s back from somewhere. It’s as if the world – the thought of it – chews on him all day in the studio and he needs to go…
[40] The sublime and final city
Colours are something the world demands you see. If I was making the world, it wouldn’t be in colour. But it does have them, so I stare them down, and then for the relief, I work in black and white and add a touch of colour as if it was medicine…
[39] Blindness, madness, other terrors
There’s a game I play within my head – when Paul goes off somewhere, I don’t ask myself where. I blot out the question. Instead I wait for him to come back, and look at him and ask myself what he’s seen. He always shows me from the drawings…
[38] Mister Professor
On the boulevard, the speed of his walk leaves passers-by in his wake, draughts horsedrawn carts alongside him. Nothing is chasing him but much is pulling him forward. A narrower street would not contain him – he would bowl over pedestrians…
[37] To look down into the drained pool
Paul thinks I’ll go home after tonight and tear a strip from him, since I’ve done it enough. But no ... I’ll go home with Paul and Johnny, and close the door behind us, and tell myself, ‘This is ours.’ Our bed, Paul’s studio, the…
[36] A forest of thronging spirits
The Aaronsons have sent a cab for us, but on the street, where grandfather is waiting, Emma tells us, ‘I want to walk.’ With the air and the pavements clear, probably she can do it, with grandfather and me carrying Johnny in his bundle.…
[35] The last fingers of leaf
I make Emma laugh. It’s the best thing I can do, because when she’s laughing she isn’t crying or arguing. She scared me that day at the Rosemeyrs’, though I’ll never tell her. It won’t help her stop being afraid, to know I was frightened…
[34] Songs humbled and stilled
Paul likes to make me laugh, because when I’m laughing I’m not crying, or arguing with him. I can’t do either while I’m laughing. Now Johnny tries to make me laugh, too. He hasn’t yet, but I can see him trying. He’s started to recognize…
[33] The sun shines on the living and the dead
We’re at grandfather’s table on a Sunday afternoon with Johnny napping in a padded cabbage crate by the stove and the remains of lunch between us, soup plates and half a rye loaf and a half-emptied carton of plum squares from the Sun Room…
[32] Miracle, mystery, authority, all three
When you’ve been with one woman for seven years, you want to tell yourself that probably you know her. It’s better to know other people. Knowing yourself is overrated – it doesn’t help much. Insight is a box with another box inside,…
[31] A form of spirited motion
Emma left before me this morning, in a cab, with Johnny, for Gus. This time I know, but when I don’t, I don’t ask her where she’s going. I ask her where she’s been when she comes back, because she likes me to, though I don’t have to…
[30] We understand and then we die
And this morning I’m going to Gus’s studio, which means another fiaker, on another day that Paul’s gone out to his models. It drops me and Johnny at the mouth to a narrow lane off the High Street of the Seventh Quarter, the carriage…